


Never Again Unto the Breach

by freshneverfrozen



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: "Artistic" liberties, Antagonistic protagonist, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Internalized Misogyny, Masturbation, Maxson's an ass with an ass, Not a Love Story, One-Sided Relationship, Plot With Porn, Porn with Feelings, Power Play, Sexual Substitution, Stream of Consciousness, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Relationships - A How To Guide, user/usee
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-03 09:31:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 66,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5285624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshneverfrozen/pseuds/freshneverfrozen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time he sees her, he is not lost, not so much as he is at a loss. When her eyes meet his, undaunted and either  oblivious or simply uncaring to the importance of his title, he knows for certain that he has a problem at hand. He feels it in his bones and he recognizes the slight tremor of uncertainty within himself for what it is. He is under inspection and in that brief moment, the world flips on its head and she is his commanding officer and he a recruit waiting for approval. She seems to grant it after a long breath.</p>
<p>He fights the urge to relax even a fraction, concerned that those eyes might see it as weakness and then he will be well and truly lost. Swept underfoot by this stranger and the tide that follows in her wake. And such a thing, he cannot, will not, allow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this story will contain spoilers for the BOS storyline through the quest "Blind Betrayal." It is Maxson-centric, so if you're here for Danse/SS smut, take note. Maybe in another side piece if you'd like.

The first time he sees her, he is not lost, not so much as he is at a loss. She's nothing but quiet authority and poise - maternal, he thinks, despite her young face. Remarkable only in the nature of her peculiar, self-righteous brand of condescension. As though the single cock of one groomed eyebrow could match him for every harsh syllable and barked order. One look at her reveals that she's untouched by the Commonwealth grit. Certainly, he can tell she's been hiking for days on end, her pants scuffed with dust and her unwashed hair plastered to her scalp. Even so, she holds herself tirelessly. There is no defeat about her, no weight from the acceptance of a fate that's out of her hands. 

It's impressive. Just as it is unnerving. 

When her eyes meet his, undaunted and either oblivious or simply uncaring to the importance of his title, he knows for certain that he has a problem at hand. He feels it in his bones as she looks him over with those curious, cold eyes. It is years of habit and drilled muscle memory triggered by a single look from her that cause his back to straighten, his shoulders to square, and he recognizes the slight tremor of uncertainty within himself for what it is. 

He is under inspection and in that brief moment, the world turns on its head and she is his commanding officer and he a recruit waiting for approval. 

She seems to grant it after a long breath, one shared between both of them that fights even now for dominance between their chests. 

Even then, he fights the urge to relax even a fraction, fearful, _no_ , not _fearful_ , rather concerned that those eyes might see it as weakness and then he will be well and truly lost. Swept underfoot by this stranger and the tide that follows in her wake. And that is something he cannot, will not, allow. 

…………………………. 

She likes to think she has enough self-awareness to know exactly why her mind lingers on this new Elder hours after she has departed from his presence, even with the deafening, mind-numbing whir of the vertibird around her. 

She's not one for fooling herself. 

He's like the one who came before him, the one whose blue eyes still break her heart every morning when she opens her own and the nuclear sunlight burns away her dreams and she remembers, agonizingly, that _he's_ not there beside her. That he never will be again. 

When she had taken those first echoing steps into the belly of the zeppelin, her eyes had found this new man within moments, seeking him out without her permission. Broad shoulders that lead to a powerful back, hands clasped behind him rigidly as he peered out over all that was his. So very much like the other had done, the one who was hers once - only he had done the very same in the mornings while she made breakfast, looking out the picture window at the yard, not at countless meters of steel and railing. 

“Nate” had been her first thought when she had laid eyes on the Brotherhood of Steel’s Elder. Nate Nate Nate Natenatenatenate - 

_No_ . 

Not Nate. Never again Nate. 

Maxson is his name, and he is all sharp edges and petulant, child-soldier eyes. Maybe Nate would have turned out similarly if he'd stayed in the service. If a Red’s bullet hadn't blown out his shoulder and sent him home to his wife and their cul-de-sac. Yes, Nate had left the military. But the military had never left Nate. She recalls the way her husband would often speak more sharply than he intended - out of habit, he once told her, his head hung sheepishly with that apple pie blond hair dipping into his eyes. Half the time, even Nate's 'good mornings' had sounded like he was snapping orders. 

_"Yes, sir, I will have a good morning, sir, yes, sir!"_ That had been the running joke between them, the one she would crack to remind Nate that he was home, that he was safe. 

She doubts that this Maxson is as easy to quail about anything. She knows within minutes of meeting him that he has none of Nate’s softness. Just his eyes and his bearing and - 

The deep monotone that is slowly becoming familiar snaps her out of her reverie as the power armor’s microphone crackles and spits in her ear. 

"Think on your own time, soldier. I need you sharp." 

For a moment before a smile splits her lips, she wonders idly if Paladin Danse has a heart rate monitor programmed somewhere in her power suit that sends him readings. It wouldn't surprise her; how else could he read her so readily amidst the heap of metal that hides her face between a set of massive robotic shoulders? Unless he's just that in tune with the people under his command. Yes, something tells her that is the more likely answer. 

She has no time to ponder anything further as the vertibird banks sharply toward a sudden right and someone screams for her to pick up the minigun and cut down the abominations below. That is something she can do. 

Shortly thereafter, a field of dead mutants lays bleeding in the wake of her fury and she is left on empty, with nothing but her thoughts to sate her. 

……………………………… 


	2. Chapter 2

Maxson watches her. Or rather, he observes as she passes down the stairs and out onto the deck below where he can see her from his window. She has left the mess hall and is bound now for a vertibird hovering nearby. Her sponsor trails behind her and Maxson is suddenly inexplicably amused by the fact that even a paladin of Danse's stock is so cowed by the tiny woman, who by mere presence alone seems to stand not an inch under ten feet tall. 

Below, Danse stands back as the woman proceeds with the most graceless series of movements Maxson has thus far witnessed from her and lumbers into the waiting aircraft as well as she can in the confines of a few hundred pounds of armor. 

When the vertibird is no longer in sight. Maxson turns away from the observation window and all at once the exhaustion slams into him. He has time now that she is gone and duties have been assigned and he has not slept decently since the Prydwen’s shadow first crept over the Commonwealth. So it is that he makes his way to the main deck above, only to bypass all offers of dinner for the sanctity of his room. His quarters are not as stark as many of the crew would believe. This is his home. The only place that feels like he belongs as much to it as it does to him. 

This evening, however, it feels as though the room has been invaded, like an enemy force is creeping closer from the dark corners and beneath the door. Tossing vainly in his rack more times than he'd like to admit, Maxson finally sits up with the realization that sleep has broken its promise and abandoned him. His bare feet, with their officer’s callouses, touch the cold floor, and then he's up and bound for the file cabinet that has been taunting him since he locked the room door. There is nothing to do but to open it and pluck from it the newest folder, the one labeled "Talbot, Eulalia." 

Hers is an absurd name. Always will be. Had been when he'd first read it in Danse's report, and even more so when he'd heard it uttered from her own lips. An old-fashioned name out of time and place. Uncommon and not seen for two hundred-odd years. 

Talbot, Eulalia - age unknown, occupation unknown, birthplace unknown, unknown, unknown.... 

There is no more in the file now than there was the first time he had read it. Nothing but banal performance reports, a list of the inventory granted to her upon commission, and a brief physical from the doctor on board. 

And then he sees it. Scribbled in the margin of her medical page by Knight-Captain Cade. “Vault Dweller,” it says and there is a note of 111 just below. In retrospect, Maxson is fully aware that he should have guessed as much upon meeting her. Shuffling through a few more pages and finding nothing of interest, he puts the file away and returns to his bed. It is not much, not half of what he would prefer to have on the woman, but it is valuable nonetheless. It is an answer to why she shines so brightly, so pristinely among the general grime of the crew. An answer to why her eyes spark with such morbid amazement rather than hatred each time he mentions mutants or synths or any other scum that inhabits the wasteland below. 

His need for answers temporarily placated, Maxson closes his eyes and passes the next several hours alone, save for his thoughts. 

……………………………………. 

For a man so well loved by his crew, Talbot cannot remember a time when she has seen Maxson dine amongst them. That is why, when she and Danse come rolling in from the armory to find the Elder reclined back in one of the mess chairs, surrounded by brothers and sisters, she stops in her tracks. Behind her, Danse grunts, his large body barreling straight into her back as he, too, comes to an unintended halt. 

"Knight?" The paladin asks, half annoyed, but mostly curious as to what has stilled his charge so suddenly. 

But she waves him off and offers only a cursory glance of apology before resuming her path to the long line of hungry soldiers that waits ahead. She is not a weak-willed woman, more stubborn for the sake of spite than she is from any actual nature of hers. Yet, it takes every ounce of willpower within her not to steal peeks at the young Elder each time a new colorless blob of sustenance is spooned onto her tray. The cut of his body, from the way he leans back just far enough to appear comfortable but ready to spring up in an instant, to the relaxed splay of his fingers over the tabletop - his pointer finger crooked and tapping. All of it - it screams familiarity. It's too similar and it is everything she can do not to turn and look and make sure, make doubly damn sure, that it isn't her husband there, waiting for her to come and join him. Only logic stops her. Because logically, she knows that Nate is gone and that Nate, if it was him, would have definitely had his ankles crossed, toes pointed up, instead of planted firmly on the floor as Maxson does. 

Her nerves have almost calmed, reduced only to the white-knuckling around the tray, when Talbot finally turns from the mess line in search of a place to sit. Despite everything she has sworn not to do, she looks to Maxson and sees that he is watching her and his eyes are blue, so blue, blue like home and family and Nate and it is only Danse's quick reflexes that steady her plate before it slips from her hands. 


	3. Chapter 3

Her hands, scarred and tough now after so many months above ground, make quick work of the repairs to her chestpiece. The workbench is solid and reassuring and she's glad to press her weight against it while she works. She operates on autopilot, some would say almost synth-like, and her thoughts are far away from the empty armory. Everyone else has gone to bed. Even Danse left her for his rack not long after climbing out of his power armor. 

She hates the silence. Despises it. She had spent 200 years in it and the lack of distraction causes a fear to sink into her bones that makes her hands work fast and carelessly. The footsteps behind her are greeted with a silent prayer of thanks and Talbot doesn't care who is there, so long as she is not alone. She half expects it to be her paladin come to check on her but when she realizes the steps are too light, too slow, she knows that it is not Danse standing at the entryway. 

"Shouldn't you be asleep, Knight?" 

The voice is all at once like nails on a blackboard and as soothing as ice-cream on sun burnt lips. Though her insides swirl, she takes a steadying breath, pretending in her mind that she is doing nothing other than rising from the bench to address a judge. The armory becomes a courtroom and she an advocate, sleek and calm and ready to defend. 

"Maxson," she greets him, letting his title pass unacknowledged. They are equals here, she decides, and he needs to understand as much. His Brotherhood rhetoric has no place in her life after hours. 

"Knight," he says again and if he knows that she's staring at the smooth patch of skin between his eyebrows and not his eyes, he does not show it. Talbot wonders momentarily if he knows her full name. Of course, she decides. He likely just considers himself above using it. 

"Got orders for me? It's not even muster yet." 

She takes a moment to turn and place the screwdriver in her hands away in the toolbox and each beat of her heart is a much needed chance to better brace herself for the onslaught that is coming. When she turns back, she is ready and it is she who takes a few steps nearer and closes the field. 

It is only when his large hands curl in on themselves by his side that tells her to push on. No one is here. Now is the time. He is no longer the judge but a defendant with his jugular exposed and waiting for her to rip away any chance of a favorable verdict. 

"The last mission went well," she says and she can tell by the squint of his eyes that he's regretting allowing her to speak first, "You read the report, I trust? From what Paladin Danse tells me, I hear you've got plenty. Wish my job was so clean." She finishes him off with a smile and a sugared utterance of "Elder." 

When her blows have landed, she expects him to charge forward, a raging bull, but he does no such thing and it throws her, makes her shield falter just a second and then it’s too late. Because he prowls, one step at a time, a wolf now, and all of a sudden she is struck, open-palmed, by the memory of her husband. Push Nate just far enough and suddenly calm waters were so much more dangerous than any riptide. 

It's too much and Talbot can't stop the quiver of anticipation in her chest. All-American Nate always finished the worst arguments with angry kisses and wall fucking and Holy Father, Maxson's eyes are blue and his frame tall and his body broad and hard and he walks like Nate does - _did_. 

Talbot flings herself from his path with a shuddering breath. Her back hits the workbench and suddenly that formerly reassuring brace is a prison with iron bars that she can't escape. 

There is no respite from him because he is standing at her back within seconds and she feels the heat of him between her shoulder blades. Her hands fall against the workbench's cool top as her eyes slide closed. She can almost believe it's those awful teal counters from her and Nate's first apartment beneath her fingers and he's come to spy over her shoulder at whatever abomination of a culinary disaster she's thrown together in the thirty minute span of her returning from class and his arrival home from work at the recruitment office. If she just presses back against him in silent defeat, bested by Salisbury steak, he'll brush aside her hair and kiss her neck and suggest oh-so-sweetly that Chinese or hamburgers from the corner diner will be just fine. 

If it’s Maxson’s hand or Nate’s that whispers past her elbow, Talbot can’t tell anymore. But he’s standing too close and yet not close enough because she can’t crawl into him and hold him and tell him that she needs him to come back. 

“This is decent work.” 

Maxson. It’s Maxson. Elder Maxson. Maxson with the fucking blue eyes and fuck him. _Fuck_ him. She hates him. She hates his goddamn broad shoulders and how he holds them back a little too straight, hates how he walks and talks and sweet Lord but if she screws her eyes shut just a little tighter – 

“It’s a work in progress,” the words tumble out of her mouth like vomit and taste just as sour because she doesn’t want to speak to him anymore. 

He grunts and if he can tell the sound makes her insides go to water and her thighs tremble, she doesn’t know and he couldn’t kill her slow enough to make her admit it. 

Damn him. 

……………………………………………. 

It is when Paladin Danse shoves roughly past him without a word of apology that Maxson knows something is wrong. The Paladin isn’t due back until 0700 the next day and when his superior inquires after him, the armor-clad soldier acts as though he hasn’t heard a word. And so Maxson follows him and they make it as far as the main deck before he knows where they’re headed. The medbay door is shut tight and inside Cade is snapping orders at all available underlings. 

“Paladin?” Maxson has stopped just behind Danse when, finally, the larger man turns and reveals everything. His stoic face is haggard and Maxson thinks the man looks like he’s been three rounds with a Deathclaw. “What’s happened?” 

“Knight Talbot, Elder. She took a shot gun blast from a mutant –“ 

“Where?” 

“Her right side, sir. From about forty meters out. I – I couldn’t patch her up well enough in the field and had to call for an extraction.” 

Maxson is struck more by the Paladin’s uncharacteristic nerves than he is from any panic or concern that is slowly slithering up from his belly and into his throat. Danse looks like he might be sick and then Maxson remembers the man’s reputation among members of his squad. But the younger man is not unkind and he places a hand on the metal-plated shoulder across from him. 

“Let the Knight-Captain do his job, Paladin. You’ve done all you can. Get some rest.” 

For a breath or two, Danse looks like he might argue but when he meets Maxson’s eyes and sees the command in them, he turns and ambles tiredly away. The Elder is almost ready to do the same, sparing a single, long glance at the medbay door and readying himself to turn, when a broken wail erupts from within that causes his heart to stutter in his chest. It is a cry from someone unused to the physicality of war wounds and the ragged shriek is a far cry from the cutting voice he has grown accustomed to sparring with, the one that chooses every syllable with care. There in the hallway, he is taken back to the night before in the armory when he had very nearly stood chest-to-back with her and that same voice had missed a beat then, too. That had been before she had turned and looked up at him with such intensity that he had dropped the chestpiece he’d been admiring out of reflex and stepped back from her. 

“Goodnight, Elder Maxson,” she had told him before she’d stepped around him, taking obvious care not to so much as brush the tails of his coat. 

Now, Maxson reminds himself that soldiers get hurt. It’s inevitable. He has seen as much time and time again. But that does not stop him from throwing out a hand to brace himself against the bulkhead when a second scream rips the air. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving! Here is my gift of explicit content for you all. Enjoy.

It is nearly two months before she returns to the Prydwen and when she does, she reeks of ghoul and chems. Maxson cannot even bring himself to address her as she drags past the entrance of the observation deck. Neither does she make an effort to look his way. She just shoulders her rucksack higher and winces at the strain the movement puts on her still tender side. 

He could kill her. 

She had all but abandoned her post after Knight-Captain Cade’s treatment and that was room enough for an exile, or at least a demotion, in the Elder’s book. Wounded and recovering or not, she is every bit as bound by duty to the Brotherhood as any other soldier on the Prydwen. The very idea has him stewing for the entire day and by mealtime, Maxson is ready to scuttle the entire ship if it would but take her down with it. The nerve of not reporting in is beyond him and it is too much for his ego to contain. 

Why, then, he waits until after supper to send for her, he does not know. But he owes no one an explanation and he is still debating an answer when the door of the observation deck hisses open and she is standing there as small and as proud as ever. The set of her jaw dares him to reprimand her but even that cannot save her this evening. 

She has changed into her BOS uniform, at least, and out of the jeans and faded leather jacket she had arrived in. Even across the room, the faint trace of chem cocktails burns his nose and chokes his lungs and soon he’s charging toward her like she’s a wall he has to breach. 

She only squares herself against him and when he’s looking down his nose at her, he is left to deny the relief he feels at finding her eyes clear and sharp as ever, not chem-addled as he’d expected. Just red-rimmed and weary. 

The observation does nothing to soothe his words, however, and he bares down on her with all his might. 

“Do you know the penalty for desertion, soldier?” 

What else can he do other than threaten? He cannot ask anything. Not when she believes herself above his law. How do you feel? Where have you been? It is all insufficient and Maxson’s patience is worn far too thin. 

She blinks at him once and that clearness is suddenly clouded over with pain and he wonders if his words have yet to register. He has the answer when she pitches forward unexpectedly, her body limp and loose as it gives out beneath her. Of course, he catches her. His arms can hardly reach around her fast enough as she collapses into him. 

“Just wanted to rest, Maxson,” she groans and his name is a curse, “Could’ve waited til in the morning.” 

He’s trying to hold her up even as she is insistent that she will go to the floor. She’s solid muscle and compact and damn if she shouldn’t be so heavy. But she’s burning him. She’s against him, all of him, and for the first time she's asking him for help. For a moment, he contemplates dropping her out of contempt but he doesn’t know what he’ll rupture if he does that, so he kneels alongside her, letting her weight pull him down. She is bracing against him with a too-tight grip that’s pulling fleece out of his jacket. Putting his hands atop hers to free himself is a mistake because it means his fingers have to curl over hers for the very first time. Her skin is softer than it should be, even beneath the filth of travel. It makes him squeeze too tightly. She either does not notice or does not care. 

“Walked from Goodneighbor,” he hears her explain. “Didn’t come across any Brotherhood outposts t’hitch a ride. Spent the afternoon with Cade, s’why I didn't report. He didn’t release me til after supper.” 

As her words curb, he feels her sigh against his neck. Her breath is warm and he’s just now realizing he might be ticklish beneath his ear when she presses her forehead into the curve of his shoulder. It wouldn’t be right to slide the hand that currently rests on hers down the length of her waist. Yet, it’s not the impropriety of the action that stills the twitch of his fingers. It’s the fact that he can’t remember which side she was wounded on and God forbid he makes her injury any worse. 

………………………………………… 

After Talbot has been deposited back into Cade’s care for an overnight observation, Maxson returns straight to his quarters and locks the door behind him. Tonight he doesn’t bother to put his heavy coat away in its locker, instead letting it lie in a shapeless heap near the foot of his bed. His boots and the rest of his clothing get the same treatment in short order before he barrels into the shower and flips on the water. The spray is chilly and weak, hardly doing anything more than beading against his skin before sliding off down his back. The Prydwen has never had the best water pressure but then again, he has never been anywhere that has demonstrated any better. 

He is not proud of the way his body sags against the wall, allowing his back to press flush with the cold surface instead of supporting his own weight like he does every other minute of every day. He means to wash it all away – the whole day and everything about it, the smell of Talbot and any residue that is left on him where she has branded. 

It is his imagination that gives him the idea that the patter of water against his chest feels like a tongue lapping, gliding lower until it falls away and starts anew. The images in his head are of a knight who’s whole and healthy and not bound to a sickbed but on her knees in front of him, challenging him to own her, dominate her, to snatch her by her hair and then smiling when he gives her unspoken orders to _suck_. 

It would be a lie to say he doesn’t indulge from time to time, but it’s always with a faceless image, nameless and shameless, one that disappears when he’s done, one whose eyes he never has to meet the next morning. Faced now with a new desire, Maxson does not hesitate. Past caring. The heat at the base of his spine won’t allow it and he palms himself roughly as his legs splay just wide enough to hold his weight. 

In his mind, he sees her and those damn lips need a new purpose outside of second-guessing him. His hand slides once and twice and then he closes his fingers around his swollen cock and pumps in earnest. The harder the water falls, the faster his hand works and he swears that the wet slip-slide of his palm can almost pass for Talbot’s mouth. The thought parts his lips like he’s some kind of hormonal teen, making him grit his teeth and grunt. If he could, he knows he would fuck every part of her but first, first her mouth, that damn mouth, taking him so far she chokes and her lips press against his base while his fist tightens in her hair and holds her there as he bucks against her. 

The tightness in his balls grows and his need for hard and fast lessens until it’s just his index finger and thumb rolling over his tip – her questioning tongue lapping with each jerk of his wrist. Her eyes narrow and she looks up at him and in her gaze is a command he is all too happy to follow for once. 

Mere minutes after it begins, the fantasy is over and Maxson’s fist clenches and the free hand that has been thrown against the shower door flies down to cup his balls as the other works harder against his cockhead and he’s falling, tumbling with a curse and a groan as his muscles lock down and spasm and fuck the world, if he doesn’t want her to want to take every drop that is spilling from him now and swallow. He wants to jerk her up and kiss her, to taste what he’s poured into her and clean away what’s left until he’s hard again and can fuck her properly. 

But it’s the drumming of cold water against him, not Talbot’s hands and body, that stirs him and he can bear the chill just long enough to rinse away what is left of his weakness before he collapses naked into his empty rack, gone from the day before any guilt can find him. 


	5. Chapter 5

Paladin Danse pushes training exercises every day for a week after her return. In the field and out, and Talbot spends most of the time wondering why the hell she came back anyway. That's when she looks at Danse, or at what she can see of him poking out from that case of armor, and knows that she simply doesn't want to let the man down. They’ve lost their camaraderie since she split the scene two months earlier, having escaped from Cade’s medbay before Danse awoke one morning. She feels the loss in her chest every time he won’t meet her eyes. Pretends not to notice and talks too much to fill the silence. The disappointment in his gaze lasts a day too many for her liking; it scalds her - fillets her down to the bone and leaves her wounds open to air. There are few people in this damnable place who warrant any allegiance from Talbot but Danse is one of them, whether he knows it or not. 

She aims to remind him. 

So, she pushes herself and her body until Hancock's chems are out of her system and she can move without wanting to fall over. 

For a little while, whatever is looking out for her grants her peace. Let’s her avoid contact with the Brotherhood’s leader. She's been allowed temporary leave so long as her paladin babysits her and even that news had been delivered by word of mouth down the chain of command. Naturally, the lull comes to an end quickly and soon the memories hit her hard and fast and she's not braced for them. They drive her to her knees when they come. This time they change the game. Snap a hypermnesic cord that she doesn’t have the desire or the know-how to weld back together. 

It happens when she and Lancer Captain Kells garner an audience during her first briefing at the end of her recovery. Even after so long, she has not forgotten how _his_ steps sound. Or, rather how her husband’s sounded. Boots. Boots on all the time. Never barefoot. His gait long and paced, soles off the ground for a heartbeat too long. Never rushed, steady, steady until he's on her, sweeping her up and carrying her around the house for the sake of hearing her laugh. Kells must not see the shiver that runs through her as her past collides violently with her present. He’s distracted by the Elder’s appearance. 

Talbot’s body aches to turn from Kells when she hears those steps come to a halt in her shadow, but her brain overrides her muscles' command and holds her firmly in place. It’s not Nate. Not the narrow hallway of their home in Sanctuary Hills. It’s Maxson. The claustrophobia-inducing Prydwen. 

The newcomer with no right to sneak up behind her greets her superior first. "Captain." 

Kells inclines his head and Talbot thinks it looks enough like blind, shit-faced reverence to make her lose all respect for the Lancer Captain but she says nothing. Doesn't take her eyes off the older man. Won't. Not for anything. 

Kells looks at her again and reiterates orders she’s only half-listened to - something about escorting some child through a damn war zone near Diamond City \- before he dismisses her. All that is left for her to do is exit up the stairs. Thank God. She _needs_ to find Danse, so calm and comfortable. Wishes she could click her heels and appear at the paladin's side without having to turn and ignore blue eyes as they stalk and taunt her retreat. 

But those eyes do no such thing. For once that gaze doesn't track her when she passes by, even as she makes an accidental show of her arm grating against the bulkhead so she doesn't risk touching _him_. 

For Kells’ benefit alone, she bites off a cheerful, poisonous acknowledgement to their commandant that goes unrecognized. Moments later she's gone and Maxson's speaking to the captain. She's free. But the world has slowed down and she can’t figure out how to bring it back to normal speed. The culprit is a wave of rejection that slides down her throat and throbs in her ears as the once black and white squares of the chessboard slip out from under her. 

Once upon a time, she couldn't walk across the room without Nate watching her. Bewitched or quirky or in love or all things at once. Something. Whatever. It became a comfort to her and a matter of pride. Talbot feels empty now for the first time in a long time because Maxson is _supposed_ to remind her and today he hasn't and if he doesn't, Nate is slipping a little further away. 

Such a thing can’t be tolerated. She still needs him because he's not gone, damn it. Not yet. 

It’s foolish, she’s aware, and she’s delusional and maybe a little bit sick. Somewhere inside, reason swells and kicks at illogical emotion. She’s better than this. Distance. She needs distance. Or a cold bucket of radiated water dumped over her head. Not happening, though. Danse will do instead. Distance. Difference. Danse? Yes, Danse is different. 

Good. 

……………………………… 

Maxson isn’t looking for her when he finds her. It’s after hours and the Prydwen is quiet save for the hum of engines. The moment he rounds the corner and sees her, he knows it is definitely Talbot standing just ahead of him at the railing, because her hair isn’t regulation. It’s loose and blowing wildly in the wind, whipping around her shoulders as she stands at the bow of the flight deck. Any other soldier under his command has enough respect for their positions to keep their bearings in all things at all times. But it’s dark as pitch outside and if Maxson was to give her the benefit of the doubt, he might assume she was hoping no one would catch her this late. He knows better. Truth is she does it because she wants to and the only way anyone could stop her would be grab a pair of shears and start cutting. 

Or maybe Paladin Danse could stop her. Maxson has noticed the man is the only one who can keep any kind of leash on the knight. But he certainly isn’t going to pull Danse aside and request he keep his charge’s hair under better control just because it annoys Maxson and makes him want to reach out and wrap his fist in it. For now, though, he stays back far enough so that she does not notice him. She can’t hear him over the rumble of the Prydwen’s engines and at first he means to use the anonymity to think of the best way to challenge her. But her hair is still catching in the wind, drawing his eyes to her like a snare around his ankle. 

It’s a trap that pulls him closer until he is finally at her side. When she turns her face to him, the peace that she has been enjoying shatters and he doesn’t know if he should take such a thing as a victory or a slight. Rarely does he surprise her. Nine times out of ten, when she looks at him it’s as if she’s been expecting him and he’s running late to a meeting he didn’t know he was expected to attend. Tonight, however, she can’t hide the surprise on her face fast enough for him to miss it. 

“Maxson –“ a strand of hair catches in her mouth to cut her off. The time she spends shoving it out of her face gives him a chance to test her defenses. He wonders what she will do if there’s a change in his tactics. 

“Talbot.” He says and the name is more familiar to his lips than she knows. He’s spilled himself to those two syllables more in the last two weeks than he has altogether in the previous season. Sure enough, her eyes narrow and all at once, she's wary of him if the bowing of her chest and chin is any tell at all. 

Since she was wounded all thoses weeks ago, Maxson has almost forgotten what it is like to have her looking at him with such ferocity, as if she could devour him whole like a master might an acolyte who has stepped out of line. She might cut him to ribbons if he hadn’t steeled himself, pick him apart to discover what would undo his patience today and then spring on him in that politely insubordinate way of hers. As though she simply doesn’t know any better. Maxson has decided that is precisely the reason she gets away with as much as she does from the rest of the crew. 

Not this night, he thinks. 

“I read Paladin Danse’s report on your work with the squire,” he pauses to give her time to absorb what he’s said and almost instantaneously he can see the wheels turning in her mind as she works at light speed to analyze all possible outcomes of where he might be leading. 

All she offers after a moment is a noncommittal, “Good kid.” 

Maxson tilts his head and one corner of his mouth twinges uncomfortably, as if he’s physically resistant to the act of smiling. He doesn’t often deadpan, not in years, and neither he nor Talbot seem to know quite what to do when he quickly says, “Danse or the squire?” 

Talbot nearly flinches back from him, going so far as to look around over her shoulder to see if anyone else might be about who could confirm for her that Arthur Maxson did actually almost tell a joke. She has no luck and she’s left to sort out the lunacy on her own time. 

“I’d think you’d be a closer fit to the kid’s profile, Maxson,” she eventually replies once the world has righted itself, “ _sir_.” 

Ah, there it is then. That flare of tension as that last word leaves her mouth. 

“She almost took a bullet, you know,” Talbot goes on, seemingly more comfortable with their usual caustic rapport and quick to shut down his momentary lapse from normality, “Would have if Danse hadn’t yanked her out of the way.” 

He tilts his head and a strand of dark hair that has been loosened by the wind falls into his eyes, but to move it away would be to give her a chance at escape. He lets it hang and doesn’t know why it makes her swallow so hard when she sees it. 

“Then perhaps it’s Danse I should be commending,” he says. 

Her mouth snaps shut with a clack of teeth he can hear even above the mechanical groaning. 

“Yes,” she bites back and then she smiles and it’s all pearlescent teeth that gleam in the moonlight. “Fine soldier, Danse. Good man. _Years_ of experience saving lives and killing things. Less good at paperwork, but hey, that’s the trade off, am I right?” 

Maxson can’t stop the prickling of his skin as the little barb stabs him. It lights under him like a match dropped into kerosene. 

Talbot cocks her head and makes a show of kicking him when he is down and damn her. Damn her and how quick she is. 

Ever unmerciful, she proceeds to wonder aloud, “How long has he been at this?” 

It’s a question she knows he can’t answer because anything he tells her will outweigh what he can say about his own experience. This was a mistake, Maxson decides. If she says anything else, he might just clamp his hand over her mouth to shut her up because he doesn’t want to hear it. Any of it. 

“Knight,” her rank is a warning that she has never heeded before and by now he knows he should have figured the fuck out that using it is like sending up a flare of surrender. And Talbot doesn’t take prisoners. 

But tonight, her last charge is different than anything she’s done prior. Maybe it's retaliation for his jab earlier. Maybe she is simply sadistic. She shuts her mouth and then she closes the small space between their bodies. The next thing his mind can register is that her small, feminine form is up against him, chest to chest, and she's peering up at him with a look so cruel he actually draws back just to regain his mental footing lest he make the kill easier. She’s searching his face, every line that isn’t there after only twenty short years, every scar and hair. 

The jolt of her fingertips against his jaw is enough to shake him and his hand flies to her wrist, closing around it like a vice. She’s meant to pull away. She would if the world made sense. But she doesn’t and he can feel her heartbeat thrumming against his palm. It’s running away beneath her skin and he can’t turn her loose. 

One delicate finger remains free from his hold and he feels the pad of it run up the line of his face to his ear. Faint and light and he knows he’ll still feel it when he lays down tonight. The flesh there rises to her touch and he doesn’t want it to because she’ll see and it’ll be one more battle lost. 

“Trim the beard,” she whispers as that intrusive digit finally pulls away, “Do it for me, won’t you?” 

_What_ ? If Maxson scowls any harder his eyes will be closed. 

“For you?” 

No. _Negative_. That’s not what he meant to say. But it’s too late and the words are out. His voice is ragged and stuck in his throat, so he tries glaring at her instead but the effect is lost, earning his inquiry no reply. 

Whatever spell she's under appears to end. Talbot takes a step back and his hand follows her, still wrapped around her wrist. One moment more and he releases her as if she a grenade that’s about to blow, before turning sharply on his heel and leaving her where he found her. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who has been keeping up with this story! I hope you continue to enjoy it! All the best to each of you!

Maxson has been confined to the observation deck for the better part of the day. The ship is buzzing around him, energy arching and popping from the whispers of those who pass in the hallway. All for a glorified scavenger hunt. Nearly a half-dozen teams in the field, tracking down the necessary elements of a well-known secret. _She’s_ out there, too, due back this very evening. A week it’s been since they last spoke – the morning after she had ambushed him so viciously on the flight deck. He had added orders to those Kells had given her. Half for the sake of watching that angry tic of hers as she smiled her tepid acquiescence, and half because he almost trusted her to get the job done. Or maybe he wanted to trust her. He did trust Danse at the very least, and Maxson was more than certain that the paladin would toss her over his shoulder and carry her back himself if she tried to disappear again. 

Even now, Maxson's fingertips are tingling in anticipation he refuses to acknowledge and only by curving them around the collar of his jacket does he stop them from twitching. He has no choice but to hide it, because a scribe has come in with a bundle full of reports held in his arms. Maxson waves him over to a table nearby, as he has done at least three times over today. A loud, grateful sigh is breathed as the heavy load rattles the table legs and Maxson resists the urge to roll his eyes. Below him on the flight deck, a vertibird is hovering near its bay and, though it’s too early still, he squints to try and make out which team is returning. Or at least he tries to until the prickling of hairs at the back of his neck alerts him that he is not yet alone. Unlike the previous encounters today, there is hesitation before the scribe departs – Maxson might find if admirable if he weren’t so damned annoyed by it. 

"Is there a problem, scribe?" 

The young man jerks back as if he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His eyes, which have previously been lingering upon Maxson's face, squinting and trying hard to discover an untold secret, suddenly flick to the floor. 

"N-no, sir!" 

Maxson scowls and the look alone has the other man backing toward the door. "Then that will be all." 

"Yes, sir!" 

The man snaps to attention and departs in one hurried motion, burned out by the Elder's glare. When he is gone, Maxson catches himself raising a hand to the beard at his chin, recently trimmed. He can’t remember the last time he’s cropped it so short. Regret snatches his gut in that moment and twists and just briefly enough to sting, he loathes himself for ever picking up that razor. The same razor that is currently lying at the bottom of the bin in his room, tossed aside like a junkie’s needle, used and leaving him unable to take back what he had done. 

When the reports have been read in their entirety, evening has fallen over the Commonwealth and with the darkness, the Prydwen goes quiet. The bustle of the day is done and the mess hall emptier than usual from the current deployments. Every present face is familiar to Maxson as he makes his pass, all of them looking up from their trays to greet him with a warm quietness that he returns as best he can. Not among the diners tonight is Talbot, and neither is Danse, for that matter. It is another minor point on a long list of annoyances, but one that can be easily rectified. 

He finds the pair in the armory, their heads bent over a rifle as they squabble about some modification Danse seems positive will wreak havoc on the weapon’s recoil. Neither takes notice as Maxson pauses in the doorway. He is curious, admittedly, and this domestic dispute of theirs has Talbot more animated than he’s ever seen her. 

“Back off, big fella’,” says the woman as she shoves a finger at the paladin. “It’s my rifle.” 

“I gave it to you, sol-“ 

“Don’t you ‘soldier’ me, Danse.” There it is. That familiar, biting tone – the one that is part jest and part warning. The same one she normally reserves for Maxson. She snatches the rifle to her chest protectively and swings away. 

“ _Mine_ ,” she snarls and leaves Danse at a loss. 

For a moment, Maxson almost feels a kind of sympathy for man. Until Talbot turns, her eyes still cast toward the man who’s her reason for being here, and she’s _smiling_. A smile that has no sheen of predatory teeth and devouring lips. Just radiance, raw and dazzling – happy, Maxson thinks, maybe even delighted. It’s too bright, like looking at the sun, and it leaves him seeing spots, half-blind and light-headed. He’s never imagined her smiling before. Just the same narrow-eyed look, perpetually contrary and oddly cold; a façade that is only ever a constant and daunting bulwark to be surpassed. 

And this smile - it isn’t for him. 

The paladin – her paladin, the one she has so obviously gotten the better of – just shakes his head with disapproval that is no more genuine than Talbot’s momentary display of hostility. 

It leaves a bad taste in Maxson’s mouth. 

Before he can speak up, another voice is calling out over Talbot’s muted sniggering. Accented and, on a bad day, as cutting as Talbot’s own, Proctor Quinlan’s words lash out from the direction of the armory’s stores. Something about taking too long with technical documents, followed by a threatening _hand-them-over-now-if-you-please_. Suddenly, Talbot’s trying to explain her way out of a corner with Danse hovering unhelpfully at her back. 

She has not yet even noticed him, seemingly unaware that he is watching every move she makes, like a sniper lining up a shot. _Later_ , Maxson scowls. His business with the woman will have to wait until _later_. It’s just as well, he supposes, because he is going to need time to forget her smile. 

By 2200 hours, the Prydwen’s Elder has seen neither hide nor hair of Eulalia Talbot and his mood is all the more sour for it. He has since abandoned the more occupied regions of the ship for his own quarters. There is solitude to be found between his four walls, if not peace exactly. Only the beeping of the terminal atop his desk keeps him company and tonight, at the very least, Maxson is grateful for it. No day when Talbot has been aboard his ship has gone according plan. She reaches out with invisible fingers and disrupts _everything_ , making ripples and sometimes waves. 

He smashes one key particularly violently at the thought and the computer chirps angrily back at him. The knock that follows is unexpected and as he runs a hand down his face, he wonders if perhaps he has imagined it. A second rap comes and then a third – heavy-handed and impatient. 

Unexpected. 

She’s looking up at him when he swings open the door and there’s a clap of paper against his chest before he can speak. 

“Proctor Ingram’s report.” Her words are followed by a smile that doesn’t fool him, not now that he’s seen the real thing. “I almost forgot. Would’ve given it to you earlier in the armory if you’d asked nicely.” 

Damn her. _Fuck_ her. 

He wants to wrap his hands around her throat and start squeezing, if only for long enough to wipe that smirk off her face. She’s not hiding this one particularly well. Too proud of herself. His heart pounds in his ears at the observation, blood racing with this same challenge he has yet to best. 

A few too many seconds go by in silence and if he hadn’t been looking dead at her, he might have missed her awkward shift from foot to foot. It’s a tic that he has noticed she has trouble controlling. Something that doesn’t stim from pride but…nerves? A weak point, if he can ever pin it down. 

Maxson grits his teeth and snatches the papers from where she has them trapped against his heart. It’s a folder. Notably, only one. 

“And _your_ report?” he asks. 

“That is my report. Or, I suppose, it’s a report about me. I’m told it’s positively glowing.” 

Another stroppy shift, as if she’s not sure if she wants to stay and torment him any longer or turn and run for cover. Maxson would almost prefer the latter. At least that way she would leave him in peace. Right now, she’s staring up at him like it’s he who has disturbed her in the middle of night. Waiting for him to either join in their game or dismiss her. But Maxson is nothing if not a tactician and she has wandered into enemy territory and the only semblance of a white flag he sees is the dingy, oversized crew-neck she’s wearing. The one that hangs too loose from the shoulders and dips beneath her arms so that it pulls teasingly across her breasts. 

Opening his door wider, Maxson steps to the side. “I need to speak to you, Knight.” 

At his request, her face pulls into a frown and by God, if she does that peculiar dance of hers once more, Maxson might just drag her inside himself. 

“We are speaking, _Elder_ ,” she says the words but there’s something else there. A challenge – veiled and coded like a message from wars long past. _Do it_ , the dare is plain enough, _go on, if you’re man enough_. 

Her jaw is set and tilted upward and if he but reaches out and catches her beneath her chin, she would have no choice – 

But Talbot’s already gliding past him and it’s all at once foreign to see her here. In his room. He’s imagined her time and time again, against the wall or bent forward over the desk, ass out for him as he fucks her. It seems almost a trespass, though if it’s against her or his own space, he isn’t sure. As if being present in this room might give her a glimpse of the thoughts that had transpired here. Suddenly, it is Maxson who is nervous, caught like a kid with dirty comics under his mattress. 

He resists the urge to clear his throat – it’s too obvious, a dead giveaway that she will pounce on – so he steels himself and breathes in once and there’s a foreign whiff of…something. Scented soap. Expensive and almost impossible to find. He wants to ask what it is and where she found it. On the Prydwen, they’re lucky if they get a shipment of oily lye cakes, the kind that burn away filth instead of cleaning it. The scent isn’t so much a novelty as it is utterly foreign. He’s never noticed it before and suspicion begins its slow creep up his spine as he circles around her to drop Ingram’s report on his desk. 

“Something the matter, Elder Maxson?” 

It’s the second time she’s called him by his title since she showed up at his door and the obduracy of her need to challenge him on all fronts sets his teeth on edge. He won’t be baited. Being baited will end up with her keening his name into the mattress. 

Still, he has to say something. Anything before she does. Hands behind his back, in _his_ room, irrefutably _his_ dominion, Maxson asks, “How goes the work with Proctor Ingram?” 

There is an arch of a single eyebrow. “You’ve got the report.” 

“I’m asking _you_ , knight.” 

“Just fine. All electrical knick-knacks and technological thingy-ma-jigs present and accounted for as of 1100 this morning.” She grins at him and rolls her shoulders. “Danse and I do good work. Anything more than that, you’ll have to read the report.” 

Behind his back, his hands tighten around one another as his tone warns her to drop the disobedience. But tonight, she’s fearless in the face of him and what has steeled her, he wishes he knew. 

“Knight –“ 

“Sit down,” she says suddenly, and the next thing he registers is that she’s stepping up to meet him. 

Maxson’s rarely shocked. He prides himself on expecting the unexpected. This, however, is past what their usual dance entails. She’s not asking; hers is a blatant command. It’s a war of attrition suddenly becoming a nuclear Armageddon. 

“Excuse me?” 

He means it. He’s not sure he heard her correctly. But there’s a small hand on his chest coaxing him back toward his desk chair and for once, Maxson is actually too taken aback to put up a fight. Too struck that he stands back and watches the bombs fall as if instead they’re shooting stars. 

“You’ve done it wrong,” Talbot explains unhelpfully, “Now, where’s your razor?” She looks around his quarters, her head turning this way and that. 

“Knight –“ 

“Men keep their razors like ladies keep their lipsticks…or they used to, anyway.” She turns back to him and there’s a pleading in her eyes, almost a sadness, and Maxson doesn’t know what to fucking do with it. “Where is it, Maxson?” 

This has gone too far. 

“No,” he shakes his head and in an instant, he has leapt up from the chair. “ _No_.” 

“ _Yes_ , you’ve clearly already gone and done what I asked you to, half-assed though it may be, so –“ 

“That’s _enough_!” He all but snarls at her, on her suddenly, bearing down on her with every ounce and inch he has over her and every year he fucking doesn’t. She flinches and is facing him in an instant, her seemingly frantic search halted. There’s a flash of something – a grin, maybe, or at least a twitch at the corner of her mouth that reveals she’s not afraid. She looks like a hustler whose set him up for something and he’s already been robbed but he doesn’t know how. 

“There he is.” 

The words are spoken so softly Maxson almost doesn’t hear them. It’s a breath, a relieved sigh between parted lips, and whatever hand has been played is already being shuffled back into the deck. 

“Sit down,” she’s standing too close and all he smells is that damnable soap and _her_. “ _Please_.” 

The last word is a purr, laced with a femininity that is all but gone from the world these days. Maxson’s never seen anything like it. His body betrays him. He sits. Slowly sinking down, relinquishing his power solely for the sake of seeing where this goes. He hopes she understands what he’s doing. He thinks she does. Because she smiles and if he doesn’t stare too closely, he can almost pretend she’s not a cat and he’s not a yellow canary. 

“Where’s the razor, Maxson?” 

“I threw it away,” he grunts and there’s a different kind of regret welling up in him now. Shaking her head, Talbot looks for the nearest trash can. Not much else has been thrown inside, just a few papers and a ruined washcloth or two. She pilfers about as daintily as she can until she has the straight razor between her fingers. The silver of it catches in the dim light and if it was anybody else, Maxson would have reached for his gun by now. 

She retreats to the sink, where she washes the blade and withdraws from the medicine cabinet the sudsy, scentless soap that passes for his shaving cream. He watches as she lathers her hands, small fingers gliding silkily over one another, gentle, teasing almost, and she’s doing it on purpose, he’s sure of it. Between his legs, blood is rushing and he wonders what will happen is he shifts just slightly. If that military rigidity is forgone for just a few minutes to give him room to breathe. She’ll see, and Maxson isn’t positive that he would be ashamed at the prospect. He continues to watch her as one hand circles her wrist and strokes down to a fingertip. Light as feathers, far softer than his own. His cock twitches to life and if this is the game, he’s willing to take her bet. Leaning back just far enough to get comfortable, he splays and stretches out his legs. Waiting. Watching. 

Talbot returns to him when her hands are covered in suds, a rag tossed over her shoulder, and the razor gleaming between two fingers. “I hope you trust me,” she croons and Maxson prays that she doesn’t see him swallow. 

Her hands are as warm as he remembers as she runs her palms against his jaw. Her fingers sweep in practiced motions from his chin to his ear and halfway down his neck, coating skin and hair alike in a layer of foam. He won’t hum his appreciation at the feeling. He’s not so weak. Not yet. Not even for her. Not even as her thumbs rest too long just below his ear and circle there softly, massaging with just enough pressure that Maxson can concede to letting his eyes flutter closed. She’s done this before. He doesn’t want to know how often or to whom. 

Too soon, the heat of her is gone from his side and the trance is broken. His eyes snap open, aware once again and on edge until he hears the facet turn on and the weak trickle of water as she washes her hands. A minute later she returns to him and her knee bumps one of his. He understands. Spread his legs wider. _Let me in_ , she asks wordlessly and Maxson knows he’s committed now. He splays his knees just wide enough for her stand between. She slips in like a puzzle piece. So close that her lower body and stomach are leaning against his chest, bracing her weight there, insolent to the last and unashamed that it leaves him eyelevel with her breasts. 

One finger beneath his chin lifts his head and the first chill of the blade nearly makes him flinch. 

She is playing her game. He will play his. His gaze is not soft as he watches her from beneath his lashes but his hand is as he raises it to rest atop her hip. Fingers close together at first, un-invasive, as if he means to steady her. She does not brush him away. No, she’s not so kind. She smiles softly and for a moment, her eyes fall closed and the razor stops its trail upwards toward his jaw. A single breath later and she’s resumed her task. 

She’s remarkably gentle, showing him a kindness he has not shown her in his late-night thoughts. For all her cutting remarks, her hands are those of a lover, practiced and sure. She keeps his beard cut close to his jaw, rather than leaving it straggling down his neck. He has already cropped it short for her and if the continuous running of her free hand’s thumb along his cheek is any tell at all, then she is pleased. Somewhere, in the lull of silence, Maxson has decided to let her do what she will. His price for this is to place his other hand on the hip he has not yet claimed. She is trapped. His for the time being. 

She still does not argue. 

For the final time, she swipes the blade against the cloth at her shoulder, humming to herself, pleased with her work. She folds the towel neatly, tucking away any residue, and then slides it against his face until any remaining lather is gone. 

“You can wake up now,” she whispers to him and if he were not in such a good mood, he might glare at her cheekiness. “Don’t look so worried,” she winks, “It’s much better.” 

She still has not moved, Maxson notes, but she does toss the rag and accompanying razor atop the desk beside them. Standing as she is, her body braced so near to his, she can’t see how hard he is, how his cock strains at the seam of his pants. 

Her hands come to rest atop his, as if she has read his mind and seen the internal debate he’s facing as to whether or not to release her. It wouldn’t take much to upright her, to pull her down into his lap. Her tits have been in his face for the last half-hour and he wants to see them, to feel their softness beneath his teeth and mouth. What would she do, Maxson wonders, if he was to pull her down and rip away the shirt and _mark_ her. Pay her for services rendered. This new beard is her doing, after all, and Maxson wants to hear her cry out as the coarse hair she has so diligently tamed drags along the insides of her thighs. The thought makes his fingers tighten and Talbot hisses a breath and closes her eyes, her fingers clamping down over his to still him. Or maybe they’re pushing him harder into her. He can’t tell. 

Just once he squeezes the flesh between his hands and in response, her hips push flush against him. He holds still. Let’s her grind. Can smell the _wet_ of her and regulations be damned, if she lets him, he’ll wreck her for tonight and every other night until they’ve had their fill. 

Something has to be said. Something to throw up a flag between the warnings going off in his head about making fantasies reality with soldiers under his command and the throbbing, most primal of needs to just _have_ her. 

His voice is hoarse, hardly more than a rasp. “Should I thank you?” 

It’s a misstep. A miscalculation, he realizes a second too late. 

At his words, her eyes spring open and her head snaps down to peer at him, wide-eyed and…lost. Like he’s woken her up suddenly from a daydream. The sudden change shocks him and it’s he who releases her first, pulling his hands away and leaving her to flounder on weak knees without support. 

She catches herself and steps back. It’s second nature for her to grin and sure enough, that half-hearted laugh splits her mouth and she shrugs off whatever has just transpired between them with a toss of her shoulders. 

“It’s late, isn’t it?” She makes a show of searching for a clock as she retreats. And it _is_ a retreat – he’s won and all it’s got him is a hard on and a room that’s about to be empty. She’s all but stumbling over herself to reach the door. Maxson can’t even follow her. Not now. 

Her hand closes over the door handle and she winks _toward_ him, not at him, but in his direction. “That beard needs to be trimmed every week,” she chirps and suddenly she’s choking on her words, “Or at least it does – _did_ for…well, someone. Some…people. You know?” 

“Talbot,” Maxson stands. Can’t hardly get out of the chair fast enough. Tonight, however, her name doesn’t stall her. 

“Goodnight, Maxson.” 

She slips out the door when he’s all but two steps from her and he doesn’t call her back. It’s a decision he only regrets when he’s locked the door behind him and throws out an arm to brace himself, letting his forehead rest against it and taking what comfort he can in the fact that no one was in the hall to witness her as she fled. His erection is still heavy between his legs, and for the first night there is a _need_ burning there rather than just a want for flesh or the desire to dominate what refuses to be cowed. It presses at the base of his spine and up into his chest, red-hot and suffocating, until his fingers begin to twitch involuntarily with the desire to answer his body’s urges. 

Gritting his teeth, Maxson takes a breath and it’s cold in his lungs. Not tonight. Something feels wrong about it tonight, when he was a hair’s breadth from the real thing, when a different action or word would have had the two of them tangled together against the wall this very moment. She might be sighing his name in his ear, begging him for all he could give her, until he was hilt deep inside her cunt and couldn’t go any further. Until she smiled, that real _smile_ , for him, and he answered any command she gave him for as long as she let him have her. 


	7. Chapter 7

She dreams of warmth, of comfort, of home. 

She dreams of Nate. 

Flat of her back, bare to the world and him, she can feel his solid weight atop her, pinning her down, anchoring her to the past. His head, blond and bowed with his scarred cheek against her belly, is turned away from her as he rests. Those hands, the ones that she'll never forget, stroke her sides, counting her ribs idly, and it is strange to think that these same hands have pulled the trigger on people's lives. They are hands that have waged war. Hands that have made love. And they're on her now and she wants to weep, to turn her face to God and plead that they never leave. 

His hair, cropped close at the sides and long on top, slicked back and dark with gel she hates the smell of, tickles her flesh and she wiggles as one particularly troublesome lock slips over her belly button. He's stirring now. 

"Nate?" Her voice cracks because she's afraid. Doesn't know why, but there's a dread welling up in the corners of their bedroom like a shadow. 

When he looks at her, he's beautiful. Blue eyes, sleepy and sated, meet her own as his white, chipped-tooth smile peeks out from beneath his trimmed, fair-shaded beard. 

She knows what's coming. Her heart might burst out of her chest before she hears it. 

"Lale?" 

His chin, which has been turned to prop atop her stomach, is forced to move as she quivers. Her name. A name she hasn't heard in two centuries. A name no one knows but him. A secret between them and dreams. 

It is only a moment later that he, not so sleepy as to be immune to desire for her, is dragging himself up over her. His large body covers her and she's safe; she's so _safe_. Safe as houses. There is no pretense to their rutting; no warning as he slips between her parted thighs and presses into to her and she keens for him. Always for him. Her knees lock his hips to hers. She needs him close, close enough so that she can grab hold and keep him there. Hold him tight enough so that not even the morning can snatch him away. 

He fucks her like he never left, like he's a part of her. An extension of her. Slow and deep, pumping into her like a heartbeat. He tastes like she remembers - salty skin and bitter aftershave. Her lips drag over the rough patch of flesh that mars his shoulder front to back. A bullet hole. 

"Mine," she whispers and he groans roughly in her ear, a sound that makes her thighs tremble and clench, "Mine." 

Hers. 

Lips are on hers before she can take her next breath, eating her alive, open-mouthed and unslakable. It makes her dizzy. Dizzier as she's hoisted up and her legs wrap around his muscled waist, heels pressing into his back. He drives her against the headboard, the one that clacks against the wall and strips the paint, marking them into the house itself. A footprint. 

Another growl in her ear and suddenly the languid pace becomes sharp and desperate and Talbot begs him, needs him. She needs to watch him shatter and _remember_. Without mercy, as desperate with her hand as he is with his thrusts, she forces his mouth to hers and kisses him with open eyes. 

Below her, there is the tell-all grunt of a man on the edge and then he roars, cock weeping as it spasms and she screams because the heat of him burns her to her core. 

And it's over. 

A lover's embrace, with fingers caressing broken skin and score marks. Kisses to tease her flushed neck. 

"Love you," she gasps and there's still an echo of truth in those dream-hazy words. 

The voice that answers is gravel, biting and unexpected. 

"No, you don't," teeth pinch at her shoulder, "Knight." 

It is still blue eyes that stare back at her, but they belong to a younger face and Talbot feels the cut of betrayal down to her gut. She has become the enemy. She clings to the self-loathing, fists it tight, determined not to forgive, even as Maxson flips her to her belly and a new desire descends. 

......... 

Something is different when Maxson sees the woman next. He hasn’t been in her company for more than five minutes today and he can see it in the way she holds herself. Like a soldier the day after a battle. A battle won, maybe. Maxson knows by now that she will accept no less. But even as he tells her of her new orders, his own stance rigid as he struggles to find his footing after this new turn, she stares him down. That familiar flicker of uncertainty sparks in his belly. He wasn’t expecting this and it has shaken him, this detached observation that she now forces upon him. 

Like she hadn’t been in his quarters just a few nights before. 

She makes him feel like less than he is. Like she has a God-given right to expect more from him than he can give her. As if he's not her superior officer. When she looks at him and there's a rush of feeling that he's not quite enough, that something is amiss, and there is some standard he isn't living up to. A fucking bar that's set so high over his head he doesn't even know where it is, never mind having the faintest clue how to reach it. 

The instances when she looks at him over the edge of those sunglasses she often wears are the worst, the most infuriating. Just like now, with the slight raise of her brow that is nothing if not patronizing, as if he has made some slight misstep and she's warning him to get back in line, leaving him to play catch up with his pride and his inexplicable want to please her. Around the third time she does it, as he's briefing her and she asks some asinine question about machines and synths and why she needs to do this, he recognizes the look for what it is. A mother scowling a child into submission. 

Like her hips didn’t still have bruises from where he’d held her. 

He does not acknowledge the hitch in his voice as his anger spikes and his ego flares high and hot, like a signal in the night. Fists clenched hard at his side to score the leather of his long bomber jacket, his words falter long enough for him to step into her so that his chest presses against the solid form of her body armor. She's a full head shorter than him, even with her boots on, but she does not flinch from his nearness, from the fact that he towers over her. At her back, Paladin Danse shifts just slightly, a movement that would have gone unnoticed by Maxson if not for the narrowing of the armored man's dark eyes as they flit uncertainly between his superior and the woman who has earned his loyalty. 

All she does - all Talbot does, is lift her chin just high enough to magnify her presence three-fold and suddenly Maxson is left to feel as though he's the one who has made the transgression. Not her, the woman with the foolish questions and incessant need to prod at every order he gives. 

She will not be bullied and Maxson swallows down the shame he feels at having tried to do so. But he cannot step away from her without it seeming like a retreat. So, he holds his ground and she does the same and they're too close, so close that Danse is visibly uncomfortable. For a moment, Maxson has the idea that the man might place a metallic-gloved hand between them and push them apart before they come to blows. 

"Is there a problem, Knight?" Maxson finally grinds out, drawing his back straight to put some meager distance between them. 

Her eyes follow the movement and then there's the faintest twitch at one corner of her mouth that causes Maxson to curse internally in outrage. 

"There's always a problem, Elder." And that twitch blooms into a man-eating smile. 

In that moment, he wants to devour her. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates should be back on schedule, as I went ahead and wrote several chapters ahead before posting this one. Next chapter up tomorrow. Cross my heart and hope to choke on my Lucky Charms. Thanks again to everyone!

Talbot has become so used to the low rumble of the Prydwen’s engines that sleeping on the silent plains of the Commonwealth is nearly impossible. There is nothing out here to keep the silence at bay. Danse is a quiet sleeper; nearby, cloaked in the glow of starlight, he lays facing her, his chest rising and falling soundlessly as she observes. Somewhere, far off in the distance, a roll of noise spikes and if it's gunfire or thunder, Talbot neither knows nor cares. Any sound to distract her from thoughts of blue eyes and heavy hands on her skin. 

When the early hours of morning come around, she crawls over to her companion, both eager for the brief exchange that is coming and sorry that she has to disturb him. Danse's arm is unusually warm beneath her hand. She forgets that he runs hot. Just slightly too warm to the touch. When he is awake, he has a habit of avoiding any actual physical contact with her. But on the off chance she is allowed the opportunity, she takes it. It's like wrapping her hands around a steaming mug of coffee. Pleasantly hot and comforting. He grounds her, ever present at her back. 

She shakes him gently and grins down through the darkness at him as he grumbles and cracks an eye to peer up at her through a veil of dark lashes. She has the upper hand; her eyes have long since adjusted to the night and he is only just waking. Yet, he doesn't jerk beneath her fingers, only sighs, as though he already knows it's her by her mere presence alone and doesn't need a visual to confirm it. 

He can't know the reassurance she takes in such a small indication of trust. 

"Rise and shine, sleepy head," she smiles and the muscle on which she still rests her hand twinges beneath her fingers. He seems reluctant to move. 

The paladin mumbles something, words slurred and drowsy, and Talbot’s best guess is that he's asked her if there's anything to report. 

"Nothing but a shooting star or three." 

With a soldier's resignation, Danse sits up and stretches. Somewhere, a joint pops noisily. "Hopefully this is the last night we'll spend on the ground for a while." 

"Better than the Prydwen," Talbot lies and Danse can tell it because he looks at her sideways. He wants to say something but doesn't know how. She could ask, tell him to spit it out, but she's afraid she'll spook him, so instead she plops down on top of the sleeping bag he's just vacated. It's still warm and smells like Danse, unaccented and musky. 

"Danse," she finally says, letting him know that it's okay, that she won't rebuff him. 

Across from her, he doesn’t pause as he checks the ammo in his side arm. She knows he's heard her, but he's thinking, formulating his words like a battle plan, so she waits. 

When he is ready, he speaks, and his voice is low, almost shy. 

"I've...been meaning to ask you something." 

Talbot hums and readjusts her head atop her arm so that she can meet his eye. It’s not so dark and he’s not so far away that she can’t see the warmth there, the quiet concern. The anger he’d felt towards her after she’d left has since mostly dissipated, leaving only worry, however unvoiced it may be. 

Danse nods his head, the way forward clear. "You've seemed on edge lately. How are you holding up?" 

She smiles, a small smile, one from the heart that warms her belly and toes. He's asking if she needs to talk, in his own roundabout way. No one has asked her that since she can remember. People have their own problems. 

"Is it that obvious?" 

There is a click as a new magazine is snapped into place and she watches as Danse runs his thumb over the grip. More thinking. Too much this time. 

Sighing, she sits up. "You worried about me, Danse?" 

The soldier isn't interested in looking at her anymore, so he looks out to the wasteland beyond, or at least at what he can see through the black. At last, he speaks. 

"All I mean is - you need help, you say the word, soldier." The last word is tacked on, a formality she doesn’t know if he’ll ever shake. 

"You help me every day, Danse. Anymore and you'll have to start charging." 

He almost smiles at that. Or as close to smiling as her paladin can get. The brief expression is gone before she can memorize it, take it in, and is replaced by the same serious cast that plagues the man all the day. 

"People are talking," he tells her plainly and she knows it’s more than gossip because it is Danse who has brought it up. Danse, who is concerned for her. 

Talbot frowns through the darkness. She hopes now that he can't see her, that he won’t notice as she wriggles uncomfortably atop the ground. 

"Apparently," Danse continues after a moment of silence, "Maxson's been asking questions. Looking into your history." 

She snorts. "I wish him luck. My records are long gone." 

"I know that, soldier. But...it's making people nervous. If Maxson doesn’t trust you -" 

"Then they shouldn't either." Talbot finishes for him and Danse nods, confirming her line of thought. She's no fool. She has a sneaking suspicion of why Maxson would be asking after her and she's damn sure it's not about loyalty. But grunts take their cues from the top and whatever the Elder’s been up to is unsettling to those who don’t know any better. She has never believed in burning bridges; she rather likes to build them where she can, and the Brotherhood is one of the most useful she’s come across in her travels. 

"Thanks for telling me, Danse." She reaches for him and pats that too-warm hand and tries to hide her smile when she sees Danse blink rapid-fire and stare down at the in-the-flesh reminder that they are, all things said, friends. 

"I...you're welcome."  
  
For a few minutes the quiet returns and Talbot finally drops back down onto her back, eager now for sleep. But the stillness is heavy, sticking to her like ozone in the air, and it leaves her restless. Danse must hear her tossing; he comes over to her and sits down near where her head lays. He knows the darkest, quietest nights are the worst for her – has heard her cry out and seen her jolt awake, panting and trembling with the vestiges of her dreams. Tonight, he says nothing more, just inches closer to her when he hears her sniffle and lays a gentle hand atop her shoulder until she drifts off. She might have nothing else, she thinks when through the pull of drowsiness she feels that warm hand squeeze lightly, but she has Danse, at least, and that’s something. 


	9. Chapter 9

Maxson is on the flight deck when the call comes that a signal grenade has been spotted near Medford Memorial Hospital. He knows who is out there. Talbot and Paladin Danse are supposed to be recovering a component to one of Proctor Ingram’s toys. It shouldn’t alarm him as much as it does; his people go into harm’s way each day to cleanse the Commonwealth of its denizens. Even so, it takes all his considerable self-control to keep himself from whirling around to the nearest vertibird pilot and barking at the man to hurry on his way. He checks himself. She can be no different, no more important than any other knight. Especially not in the eyes of the crew. She is capable and Danse even more so. They can hold their own, Maxson is certain. 

But he continues to watch with hard, attentive eyes as the crew hurries around him to board a readied vertibird, making sure that not one step falters, that no one lags, until the bird is in the air and help is on its way. 

Two hours later, that same bird returns and Maxson remains at the railing, waiting, watching. Danse is the first out, his power armor brutalized and hardly wearable. It sparks at the back, spitting and ready to die with what dignity it can manage. Two more soldiers follow and then the pilot and where is Knight Talbot? Maxson is halfway down the stairs before he realizes that he _has_ to slow down, to calm himself. Eyes are on him; Danse has turned to look at him as well and Maxson can see that the man's lip has been split up to his nose. 

"Casualties, Paladin?" Maxson can't phrase the question any other way. Can't name names. Not yet. 

Something about the way Danse frowns at him causes Maxson's breath to catch at the back of his teeth. Like the man knows - like he's caught a whiff of something amiss. Something out of the norm. A hound that, were he not so well trained, would be baying after a fox. 

But that breath is released when Danse slowly shakes his head. "Negative, Elder." 

The rest of the question hangs in the air and neither man addresses it. Very well, if it is to be this way. Maxson grits his teeth and nods shortly. Danse is dismissed. Let him see to his armor and his bloody lip and Maxson will wait, away from prying eyes, where the paladin cannot see or question. 

Talbot arrives later; she had reported to Ingram first, Maxson learns. She passes him on the flight deck and there is still blood staining the side of her face. He thinks it looks like war paint, swiped across her nose and patterned with her own fingerprints. Head wounds bleed rather impressively, he reminds himself, and the gash that runs from her temple to her ear can’t be so deep. She's more or less fine. Has to be. Her step is sure-footed but exhausted. Her hand grips the railing too tightly. But when she glances past him, Maxson swears she almost looks relieved. A small grin is flashed and he can’t return it, not even as he steps back in surprise - all he can do is dip his head once in acknowledgement. 

Just like any other soldier. 

And then, she is gone. Down into the belly of the Prydwen toward medical. He wishes he could say for certain that she goes to have herself looked at, but something in his gut whispers that she has gone first and foremost in search of her mentor. Maybe, as Maxson’s eyes follow her, it's the look on her face that reveals the truth, the barely contained worry that has carved itself into the corners of her eyes and in the purse of her lips. 

The sudden rebuff threatens to cut deep if Maxson's composure slips but an inch. He feels like schoolboy, so sure of himself one moment, and then flagging with wounded pride when the teacher chooses another. It's wrong. He should be above such a thing, shouldn't care, much less notice. Taking a deep breath, he forces himself to pretend that he doesn't. If he breathes deep enough, clenches his fists hard enough, the world will right itself once more. 

For a little while. 

Maxson isn't prepared when he arrives at his quarters an hour later and hears water running. That familiar leaky splatter against plexiglass that reveals a presence beyond his own before he's even opened the door. It occurs to him that he doesn't lock it; he's never had the need before now. 

Either his timing is impeccable or God above grants him some small mercy because the moment his hand clasps the door knob, his heartbeat thrumming in his fingertips, that water shuts off and his domain goes quiet. 

It remains so for one breath before Maxson throws open the door and charges inside. Feelings - he can't name them right now, maybe outrage, maybe lust, or disbelief, or all three - but feelings choke him and rattle his voice, even as his eyes search wildly. He knows it’s her, that it has to be her. No one else has the nerve. 

"What in God's name are you doing?" The words hardly sound coherent to Maxson’s own ears. "What the hell are you doing, Talbot?" 

He's never sounded quite so strangled. It's as though her small hands have wrapped around his throat and are squeezing and he can’t swallow down the breath that is choking him because his chest will explode if he tries. Talbot, it seems, has had time to find a towel, his towel, and is standing there soaking wet and clean, clear of blood. A picture of a time long past, with her bare shoulders and her hair slicked back. Only the mottled skin at one temple mars her, reveals her to be human, and not some vision come to torment him. 

She's looking at him. Toward him. But as he stands there, shaking and immobile with shock, Maxson swears she doesn't see him. She stares blankly, as if she is only now walking away from the battlefield she'd left a few hours earlier. 

Her name is a snarl of two syllables. " _Talbot_." 

Finally, just as his blood is threatening to rupture in his veins, she moves. She blinks at him and then those sharp, white teeth are shining out from a weak smile. 

“You’ve got all the water pressure, Maxson,” she says and as she tilts her head, a dampened strand of hair falls over her shoulder and Maxson can see the water trailing from it as it curves down her chest to the towel she holds so loosely. “I’m jealous.” 

Maxson can hear his own teeth creek as his jaw clinches. Across from him, Talbot takes one step and then another, delicate feet padding over the metal deck. She means to go around him. He almost lets her. She just reaches him, one arm slipping past his side to the desk behind him where she has placed clothes which he hadn’t previously noted. The clean fabric is in her grasp the moment his hand clamps around her wrist and twists roughly enough to make her hiss. A curl of her lip and the jut of her chin are not enough to save her from him, to nullify this transgression. 

“Get. Out.” The words are clipped, ground out through bared teeth. 

It is provocation enough and the Prydwen’s Elder has no warning when she attacks. Her hips cant into his and the fabric of the towel catches against his jumpsuit trousers and pulls as she presses. She’s warm and damp and it’s seeping in through his clothes - boiling oil to scald him and drive him back, away from the fortress she’s built. He can’t curse her because the air in his lungs has started to bubble. 

“I will,” she replies softly, “But first things first.” 

“That’s a _fucking_ order –“ 

“You’re blushing –“ 

In a moment, she’s against the wall, thrown there so hard that her bones rattle and then pinned by a hand she can’t move, a hand he won’t let her move. The skin of her throat is soft beneath his fingers, unprotected, unmarked, unowned, and bare, so bare. His other hand still grips one thin wrist, pressed now above their heads against the wall. 

What can he say? What words, what orders are there to give when, with the slightest of actions, he could drop one hand and then spread her, slip his fingers into her and give her what she’s been asking for, until she’s so beyond words and coherency that she can’t argue. 

Beneath him, Talbot doesn’t so much as wriggle. Her eyes have fallen closed and the only movement from her is the gentle rise and fall of her chest under his hand. Words won’t come to him, not even as the rage inside his belly begins to give way to something…lighter. Something less suffocating. 

Curiosity. 

She should be fighting him, glaring up at him, daring him to pursue the battle further. Maxson is, again, thrown and the sudden tickle of fingertips against his jaw makes him flinch. Talbot relaxes in the vice he has trapped her in, her head lulling back to rest and it is all Maxson can do not to turn and watch as best he can as her hand runs gently along the scruff of his beard. 

He grunts her name and the smooth skin between her brows furrows as her eyes screw closed even tighter and for the first time she shifts under him. He’s surprised when she speaks, taken aback by the plea in her voice. The note strikes him and he nearly releases her. 

“Don’t,” she says, “talk. Please, just…don’t.” 

He never should have left one hand free. He knew better. Because now she’s going to kill him. Not with a knife or a gun pulled from the holster at his hip - with her fingers against his jaw she leads him to his death. And he lets her. He watches as she pulls him to her, his face in her hand as if he could go anywhere, and suddenly she’s closer than she’s ever been. 

Maxson wonders if he imagines the tremble of her hand when she stills him an inch from her lips. She won’t look at him and in any other moment he would have called her a coward but he can all but taste her breath as she exhales one last time and then a final charge is made and he’ll never be the same. Not after he swallows the cry that shatters in her throat the moment her lips close over his. She drinks him in as if she’s drowning and Maxson can’t stand against it, not as her teeth catch his bottom lip and pull until it’s he who groans loudest, he who surges against her, covering her body with his. She’s going to burn him up and she might take the Prydwen with her but her tongue is at the roof of his mouth and she tastes like blood and nuclear sunlight. 

Talbot snatches free the hand that Maxson has pinned to the wall and soon his hair is wrapped around her knuckles as she pulls him down. _Down_. 

She’s going to consume him, damn it. It’s the wrong way around. He’s had it wrong. The nights he’s fisted his cock in his hand have never been like this, where, in his mind, he’s dominated her, put her back in her place and made her his. They’re on their knees now in the middle of his quarters, not against the wall or the desk or the shower, no where he’s thought he’d have her. She’s made him kneel with just her hands and her mouth and Maxson knows in that moment that he’ll never get up alive. 

Her name is at his lips, at her skin when he breaks free for air and feels her pulse in the curve of her neck. Like she knows it, like she can hear it coming, this disobedience of her previous order, Talbot’s hands fist in the collar of his coat and then her lips are whispering poison into his ear. 

“Will you fuck me,” she hisses, “if I say please?” The tightening of his hands at her hips must answer her because she rolls against him suddenly and goddamn her. Goddamn her as she makes him look at her, her eyes fixed shut and wet at the corners, and she strangles out a final plea. “I need you to –“ 

“Fuck you.” Maxson snatches her hair and hitches her closer. “ _Fuck_. You.” 


	10. Chapter 10

Maxson has soft hands for a soldier. Scarred and short-nailed, but uncalloused compared to his subordinates. They are hands Talbot has felt before. On her wedding night and a hundred times after, she has been marked and worshipped by hands like those that now rest at the nape of her neck. It’s not as hard as she had feared to remember Nate while Maxson sighs beneath her, his teeth scraping her collarbone. When she inhales, breathes _him_ in like air, or smoke, or carbon monoxide, it's outdated aftershave and testosterone that floods her senses. 

Close enough. 

“Kiss me,” she demands and Maxson – _he_ – doesn’t protest again. Past pomp and ceremony when his cock is straining against his jumpsuit and into her thigh. He thinks something of himself, believes himself a man – she’ll make him into one by sheer force of will. Mold him into what suits her. Into what she misses. Not many hours ago, she had barely come out of the last battle alive, bullets and lasers and molotovs going off around her, and only one thought had rang clear in her mind above the din – that she desperately wished her paladin did not have to watch as she came so very near to being freed, to finally getting to where she belonged, where she should have been all along. She doesn't long for death, doesn't wish for it, but it should have claimed her a long time ago. There had been no tears in her eyes when she had faced it. 

But then Danse had thrown that grenade and she had made that return trip in the vertibird with Nate’s ghost beside her. 

She needs to feel something. She’s tired of dreaming. 

And so she lets Maxson’s tongue roam and hungrily swallows down all that he offers. His inexperience is well-hidden by nips and sucks and revealed to her only in the sounds he makes when she drives him harder and snaps her hips over the erect flesh below her. 

A blank canvas, then, or close enough to it. One she can remake in an image gone by. 

Talbot moves her mouth to Maxson’s ear, lets him pant and squirm, and she almost whispers another name until she remembers. Instead, she leans back and she _has_ to open her eyes because he needs to believe in her, the way Nate did. Because if he believes, then maybe she can, too. 

She doesn’t catch the towel as it falls and bares her to him, but she does catch the way those blue eyes go wide in their desire. She’s seen it before. Her weight carries her back until the floor grating is cold underneath her and Maxson has followed her without question. His lips sweep at her shoulder, even as his hands creep up her rib cage. Those strong fingers go still below the swell of her breasts and she holds his head low so that he can’t see the twitch of her lips. Hardly a day went by that she hadn’t admired in the mirror either new or fading teeth marks from where Nate had branded her, rougher the more she screamed for him. Even as his heartbeat races beneath her hand, Maxson requires the go-ahead, the signal that she’s really wanting, that she wants _him_. Fingers snag in his hair and the command goes unspoken as she moves him lower. 

That trimmed beard scrapes over one pebbled nipple and then the heat of his mouth is on her, engulfing her, and Talbot chokes back the cry of a name. He tongues her, laves away for a moment too little before moving to her other breast and the sudden loss of heat leaves her to raise her hips and drag him nearer, locking him into her. 

She needs _more_. 

“Your teeth.” 

She helps him along with the newest order as her back arches at the first gentle, testing nip. Maxson snarls, a sound that comes from his groin as much as it does his throat, and suddenly the timidity of his youth is gone and Talbot’s insistent hands are ripped away and pinned just above her head. Maxson doesn’t speak, not as he scrapes with teeth at her chest and then up again to her neck. He’s a solid mountain over her, nothing but muscle and leather and hot breath. For a moment, Talbot struggles. By sheer size alone, she can’t overpower him. He holds her down like the one before him once did and when he straddles her hips and sets up, Talbot is left only to watch. Watch and reel at the expanse of his chest and shoulders and the taper of his hips because it’s almost like he’s come from the same mold, like she wasn’t imagining the similarity all this time. 

Maxson’s ever-present coat is shucked off, falling briefly over Talbot’s feet until he reaches back and tosses it away. She can’t watch his hands as they go for the buckles and buttons of his flightsuit – just his eyes, because they’re watching her and the blue has gone almost to black. It feels like hours that she lays there, left to listen to the jangle of clasps and short breaths. She sees the moment Maxson’s impatience goes too far; with one jerk, the remainder of the suit that covers him is peeled open and he might not be able to wear it come morning but he shrugs out of it as if he’s past caring. 

He’s not quick enough to stop Talbot from raising herself up to her knees, as level with him as she can be. 

“Talbot –“ 

No. No. Not _Talbot_. He can’t say that. She can’t let him, so she kisses him roughly to shut him up. She succeeds. Maxson’s hands fall at her hips and drag her forward, as close as he can, until the smoothness of her body is flush with his, rough and hard and patchy with dark hair. The grey briefs he wears do little to hide his jutting erection. Talbot knows he feels the shiver that runs through her the moment she’s curved into him; she feels the sting as his fingers clench at her and it hurts and God above bless him because it’s exactly right. 

One heavy hand sweeps down. He’s brave now. Brave like he should be. Like she needs him to be. The ghost of his fingertips against her leaves her trembling and one more pass has her keening into the curve of his shoulder, open-mouthed and pleading, begging him to go deeper. Maxson raises his free hand to back of her neck, settling it there with a gentleness to which he has no fucking right. She could scream against it, almost does, until he pushes into her suddenly with two fingers instead of one and all thoughts of gentleness are gone. In her ear, he curses and soon she’s empty and that damp hand is pawing at one thigh, opening her wider before diving in again. 

He works her like he knows her and she’s so thankful that she kisses him. Because it turns out he’s just enough and she can let her mind rest and just bask, just enjoy the plunge and twist of his hand. 

Maxson heaves against her after minutes, when her shuddering has become too much for him stand. 

“What do you want?” His voice is tense with the promise of fucking and she can’t fault him for it. “Talbot,” her nails score his back at the name and he grunts once, “Tell me.” 

Talbot thinks she can show him better. He’s still on his knees so it’s nothing to roll down the last article of clothing that hides him from her. Maxson, for once, sees fit not to fight her. When he’s as bare to her as she is to him, she takes a moment to admire him. Thick and heavy and, she notes with interest, intact, unlike Nate had been. It doesn’t matter. He’s powerful and beautiful and reaching for her. He lays claim to her mouth just as his hand closes over hers and urges her to touch him. She does so just to feel the rumble in his chest as he groans when her fingers close around him and slide once gently. He’s velvet and throbbing, rock-hard power. She tests his limits, tests them until he’s clutching at her wrist to stop her. 

“Shh,” she hushes him before he can speak again. She’s ready for him, needs him, and she can’t look at him too closely because he’s looking at her like only Maxson would, ready to erupt. Her hands slide around his neck and she commands him with a single word. 

“Up.” 

Maxson lifts her and before she can breathe again, he’s inside her, filling her after lifetimes of emptiness and cold. With her face buried in his shoulder, she waits for a heartbeat and then wraps her legs around his waist. His first thrust is slow, taxing, and Talbot can’t keep in the moan that rumbles through her. 

“Damn it,” she breathes and the broken-voiced curse must spur him on because Maxson tenses suddenly and then snaps his hips forward. Unleashed, he sets his pace and it’s grueling. Beneath her hands, his arms flex and quiver as he raises her up and brings her down again and again until she’s biting at her lip and he’s grunting with every other breath. He ducks his head and catches a tender nipple between his lips; suddenly, he’s not close enough, not deep enough, hasn’t given her everything just yet. 

And so she keens. For _him_ , louder each time his cockhead spreads her wide and drives back in again. She almost swears he says her name, but his voice is hardly more than a growl and she can’t hear over the slap of skin. Her eyes drift blearily over to the bed and all at once her body aches to feel him over her rather than under her. She needs his weight on her, pinning her down, grounding her either outside of or, just maybe, _to_ this reality. She’s not sure which. It could be both. 

“The bed,” Maxson doesn’t slow at her words, not until she paws at the back of his head and then he’s swept her up and they’re stumbling in a tangle of limbs to the single-person bunk across the room. He sinks down over her and their screwing takes a sharp turn that makes the air catch in her lungs as if she’s suddenly swallowed rocks. Maxson’s looking down at her, raised on his elbows, and a hand is swiping lightly at hair that has fallen into Talbot’s face. 

And he looks so very much like Nate that her eyes well up before she can blink away the tears. So very like her husband. And so very unlike him. Because she can see Maxson now for what he is. Young, too young, and too hard because he had grow up too fast in a world that’s too cruel. 

It almost, _almost_ breaks her heart. 

“Don’t stop,” she pulls him to her so that those young blue eyes aren’t looking at her, “Don’t stop –“ 

He shudders over her and his thrusts now are slower, calmed and less desperate. He whispers words in Talbot’s ear and she whimpers at what he wants from her. She can’t. Even as her body starts to thrum and she can’t help but rock against him, pushing her hips into his and forcing his thrusts to shorten as they shake her to her core. 

His muscles tense and tighten and just once, their pace falters, hips stuttering, as the threshold is nearly broken. 

“Say it, Talbot.” 

Shit. _Shit_. She can’t think, can’t argue, can’t even evade. Not as Maxson – him, _he_ – rolls his hips against hers and makes the world start to fade at the edges. Her thighs clench around him and her body locks down and he’s not far behind her, because for all his bearing, everything about him is coming undone with him hilt-deep inside her. 

“Say it for me –“ 

Maxson? Arthur? No, no. No. She wants to weep as warmth starts to blossom in her chest and her veins electrify. His voice is softer than it should be, gentle when it needs to be harsh, and if he’s not careful, she will say a name and it will ruin everything. 

Once more, Maxson pushes in and with it, he undoes her. She cries out – blindly, wildly – as her body snaps over that base crescendo. With a curse and her name, Maxson pulls himself away as he follows and his cock spasms between the heat of her thighs as he spills himself over her. One large hand darts between them and jerks until everything that can be milked from him has been emptied and they’re left panting together, sated and so, so exposed. 

  



	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hell of a year, guys, hell of a year. Thank you all for your continued support in the comments. Each and every one of them is beautiful and thanks so much for coming back to this story. Now...here we go again...

Talbot cries when she sleeps. Once her breath has slowed and her muscles have relaxed, when she should be free from worry and struggle...she weeps. The man who holds her, the trespasser, _feels_ it before he sees any evidence. She trembles just slightly, her cooling skin quaking beneath the calluses of his fingertips as they rove over any and all exposed flesh. 

He had assumed she would flee from this crime scene of theirs before he'd even gone soft; she would brush away the evidence and lie with a smile before leaving him wasted and debauched, bare atop his rack. 

But this woman - this new, sleeping stranger - surprises him and this time there is no fury rising in his chest to quell the sudden flutterings. When he had slid off of her, panting through teeth that were clenched and bracing for her inevitable departure, she had turned into him, closed her eyes, and drifted away. 

And now, she weeps. 

Quivering, shaking in her sleep, she is crying and the soldier's brain between Maxson's ears can't think of a single thing to do about it. Long moments tick by, like watching a grenade that's landed at his feet - a dud or flesh-ripping explosive - he doesn't know yet, but his breath stays lodged in his chest. 

He can't stand it, afraid that if he waits a moment longer, staring down at her might be the last thing he does. So Maxson shakes her. Firmly, with his hand upon her shoulder, he forces her awake. 

He even uses her title. 

"Knight," he says. It sounds bitter and cold across his lips. Not unlike swearing in a church, he imagines. 

Just once she shifts, pressing tighter to his chest and slipping her arm under his. No more tears fall, though his shoulder is damp beneath the place where her cheek rests. She could suffocate him if she wanted to, if she curls just a little closer, twines her legs with his. A second fire is stoking in his belly as her breasts press more firmly against him and her quim, sticky from where he spent himself over her, is low enough that he could fuck her all over again without having to move much at all. The thought and the fire behind it takes his hand between his legs to pull once or twice. 

Fuck her awake or wake her to fuck her. 

Or wake her and tell her go, tell her to get out from his quarters, his ship, out of his goddamn head. Because it’s sitting in now, that tell-tale ‘should’ve known better’ feeling. It’s burning in his belly, not hot enough yet to scald away the desire that’s still building with every rise and fall of Talbot’s chest. 

If he thinks too hard, too long, on what he’s done he might be disappointed in himself. 

She sighs against him and there's a muddled syllable or two that escapes. Something with a long "A" that he can't quite hear. ‘Wait’ or ‘hate’ or maybe a name…Maxson makes an effort not to listen too closely as he prods her gently. 

He's not blind. He's seen the marks on her stomach, thin and pale, just barely there around her belly button. Scars that claim her for someone else. Brands of a past life. A life he shouldn't care about and can't truly imagine, one of picket fences and family. She had, maybe still has, a son – a boy taken from her. And where there is a woman and child, there's a man. It's biology, simple fact...he understands but he marvels anyway because it's _Talbot_. Maybe it makes sense, though. Those perfected scowls and wordless threats that cause the hardiest among the Brotherhood to pause. 

Was she always so caustic, wonders Maxson, nearly aloud, a natural-born pain in the ass? Lying beside her, his fingers poaching over her belly, he tries to imagine her in clean clothes with her hair done up and that same belittling smirk disguised beneath painted lips. 

Rougher than before, Maxson shakes her and finally, she opens her eyes, blinking and sleepy. 

"You need to go," the words are right there on his lips but he can't quite get them out, damn it, because she's started to stretch, skin over skin. 

Suddenly, she swipes at her eyes, as though she's just registering the odd tightness of the skin there where her tears have dried. She flushes red down to her freckled shoulders before quickly hiding it with that fake grin he had hoped he'd fucked out of her. 

"I need another shower," her words are quick, the first she can think of, "Come on." 

She leaves him with an invitation, then she's up and untangled from him within moments and all at once regret snatches at him over having woke her. Maxson sits up, but the feeling clings to his back like a monkey. 

An inquiry about the time floats over the light gush of water. 

"Come on," she says again when he doesn't answer her, "But first find a damn clock, will you?" 

That’s not a difficult task. It's early. Earlier than he thought, and the relief floods him with an intake of breath. The world's still dark outside; they can still hide. Could ride one another again and again if they wanted. 

Or she could leave like she should, like she's supposed to, the way he just knew she would. Leave in that same spiteful victory-retreat he's seen her make a dozen times before. 

He must be dreaming, because she’s not moving to do any such thing. Instead, the gentle slope of her bared back draws him to the shower. The scene looks too much like a skin page from one of those pre-war, girly magazines. He doesn't know how much of a red-blooded male he could claim to be if he doesn't go to her, this breathing, wet dream that's awoken in his room. Male, yes, the slowly swelling dick is proof of that. But maybe not a man, not the man he should be, the man he was before she came. 

Maybe she’s a lie. Maybe she isn’t. 

Regardless, he goes to her. Silent, like a ghost, as though he can hide his weakness from himself if he treads carefully enough. She molds her body against his and tilts her head back so that the water runs unhindered down her front from her breasts to her thighs before falling away against their feet. His arms rove over and around her as Maxson watches the steady droplets. He sees them fall, grazing off her and then gone, lost. She lets the water waste itself without a single damn given because she _can_. She basks because he lets her; how can he argue, after all, when her ass is clenched over the head of him... 

_Fuck her_ . The thought is sudden and angry, gunfire in his brain that makes him pull her closer. Manipulative cunt. A whore, all things considered. _No_ – that thought stops his heart and chokes him because it’s wrong. She’s got him thinking backward again. She’s a pimp, more like it, a user. His fingers are clamping down at her hips so suddenly that she whimpers and jerks within his arms. 

It's one of the rare occasions when her uncertainty is plain to see. She's as undecided as he is whether or not he wants to throttle her or spread her. But her tense body arches away from him when his teeth catch her ear and bite. 

"Get out, Talbot," he snarls, lips curling against the reddening wound, "Get out." 

She's wrenching herself away from him a breath later, the hands that had been so calmly resting over his arms moments before now flexing at her hips to cover the marks he'd left on her. The water there is tinted pink, Maxson notices, trickling slowly between her fingers. He'd hurt her. _Scored_ her, the same skin he had been exploring just a few minutes earlier. 

The shame is immediate. It hits him like a cheap shot to the gut. Or it does until he manages the courage to meet her eyes. There's neither fondness nor betrayal in the cutting glare of her gaze. Her shoulders are squared despite the pain from the new welts at her hips, proud and…unafraid. 

"Talbot," He's not sure if her name is an apology or a warning. "Just go..." 

“You afraid?” 

The question surprises him. The soft, sleep-addled voice from minutes before is gone, replaced by her usual mocking bite. In the time it takes him to blink, she’s stepped into the path of the water, blocking it and leaving him exposed to the cold, empty air. Nearly chest to chest now, those bitter eyes peer up into his own. They see too much and he could hate her for it if he wants. 

She answers her own question. “You are, aren’t you?” 

Her fingertips are like the sharp side of a knife as they run from his belly to his neck. It makes the hair on the back of Maxson’s neck stand up. A threat, his brain registers too sluggishly, but what kind he doesn’t know. 

Talbot hums lowly to herself. “Been there, done that. Every day, Maxson.” 

Her wandering hand has traced down the length of his arm without his noticing. He’s caught on her words, on this new admission. Something that probably wasn’t meant for his ears. Not teasing, not like he first thought, but honest – maybe the most genuine thing she’s ever said to him. 

Not for the first time, she’s full of surprises. 

Maxson’s sudden grip is impulsive and unyielding. A snatch and grab. He takes her hand as though she’s got a weapon pressed to him and clenches down on the small fingers hard enough that she should be wincing. Talbot, however, only smiles – just the faintest, pleased twitch at the corners of her mouth. She’s won once more, broken his will and stepped clear of any authority he thinks he has over her. 

“Turn around,” Maxson growls in a voice like concrete, or so he convinces himself, one that certainly is not desperate, not hungry. She obeys his order without a fight, for desire’s sake or her own amusement, he doesn’t care. The low-boiling anger and building confusion keeps him from being tender. It makes him itch like a finger on a hair-trigger. With one hand and his body weight, he pins her while his other goes between her legs and then into her without pretense. She arches, her hips canting back while thick fingers alternate between exploring her and rubbing at his own cock. 

When he’s ready, hard and throbbing, wet from the water and not yet from her, he bites at her shoulder. He means to mark her, own what little bit of her he can. For days she’ll look at her skin and know that it wasn’t molotovs or laser burns or iron that branded her. She’s accepting enough, proves as much as one of her hands snakes free and reaches back to paw at his flexing thigh and drags him closer. 

The groan that escapes him as he hilts himself inside her is one he’ll regret later, along with every other sound he makes, every one she demands from him. He sounds as youthful as he is and she _revels_ in it. In return, each slam of his hips that follows is enough to jar her, nearly off her feet. 

It’s too much, rutting against this woman he should have thrown out by the roots of her hair. He’s the goddamn Elder of the Brotherhood and the body under him could go cold on any assignment; it almost did on the last one. The very idea causes his pace to stutter and Talbot sucks in an audible breath as though she feels the uncertainty, too. The requisite obeisance he so desires from her won’t ever be earned now; he’s riding it out of her. Even as his hand squeezes against one plush hip, the resounding echo of coherent thought that _this_ knight of his shouldn’t be any different plagues him, drives him harder. 

Maxson can’t care, not as he’s pumping into her as if she’s his, as if he could finish himself inside her without repercussion… 

“Fuck, Talbot –“ 

She tenses around him and through teeth bared against his forearm, she mewls out a word Maxson isn’t sure he heard over the water and the strike of flesh. He wants to ask her what it was, what she wants from him, but she says it again before he can grind the words out. 

“Lale,” she pants, “Call me Lale.” 

Lale, Eulalia, Talbot…the Brotherhood’s Elder says them all until the knight’s knees have buckled and she’s shuddering violently against him. She’s still shaking when he finishes, pulling out to hump against her bowed body until her ass is painted with what’s left of him. 

“Lale,” it’s an echo, one that’s foreign and too personal all at once. Another thing he wasn’t meant to hear but it rolls off his lips again until the fog has cleared from his head. 

Too soon the water is shut off and she’s whispering words Maxson can’t understand for the ringing in his ears. Her hair, wet and long, hangs in her face and over her shoulders, a shroud for her to retreat behind. This time she doesn’t miss a beat; her old tactics resume with a brutality that cuts him unexpectedly. Watery footprints follow her as she all but sprints across the room to snatch up the towel she’d cast off after her first shower. The same soft, uncovered back that had drawn Maxson to her earlier is turned on him now, an unbreachable wall between them. 

“2 AM,” she observes quietly and Maxson’s positive she’s speaking to herself. The clock nearby ticks forward a minute and makes a liar out of her before she’s finished the words. 

The two steps out of the shower are some of the heaviest of Maxson’s life. Like wading through concrete with lead boots. 

“Talbot –“ 

“I need Danse,” she’s whipped around to face him suddenly, panicked or spooked or both because he’s moved too quickly or not fast enough, and it makes her words stumble over her lips. “I need to find Paladin Danse…in Medical. Probably. Maybe.” 

The damp towel is offered to him as if he’s a plague patient she doesn’t want to get too close to. Maxson wraps it around his hips for all the good it does. For just a moment, Talbot’s stare falls at his chest and shoulders and she blinks as though to shake herself from a daze. Then that half-hearted, deceiving grin dimples her cheeks and she shrugs. 

“Think Cade would blush if I asked what kind of protection he keeps around?” The nervous shuffle of feet ensues and the man in front of her can’t even fault her for it because he doesn’t know what to fucking say either. “Yeah, bad joke.” 

“Talbot,” Maxson swallows hard. His next words leave the bite of copper in his mouth, bitter and cold to the teeth. “It has to be Talbot.” 

That smile is suddenly so sharp it cuts him. “Aye aye, sir.” 

She turns from him then and he lets her dress in silence. It doesn’t take her long enough. By the time the clock reads 0204, her nakedness is hidden from him by Brotherhood fatigues. 

He never suspects her to shoot from the hip. No, he’s waiting for a carefully aimed, “Goodnight, Maxson,” when without warning or mercy, she sweeps over to his side and presses up to slide her mouth over his. The cool leather of her bodysuit against his chest does nothing to shield him from the heat of her mouth as she catches his lip between hers. 

“Talbot’s just fine,” she sighs when she finally releases him. “I never liked the other, anyway.” 

The small, muttered untruth almost ghosts past him. He almost could have believed it. It’s only as she turns away too slowly that he catches that awful, deadly smile of hers and sees it fall flat before she can flee. 

_Liar_ , Maxson thinks to himself when she leaves him. She’s a beautiful, goddamn liar. 


	12. Chapter 12

It’s harder to look him in the eye than she expects. As she turns the corner into the medbay, that gaze of his makes her steps falter and her heart run away with her breath. His isn’t like Maxson’s, or anyone else’s, not sharp and hard and cold. Could be her imagination, but there’s a boyishness there he’s never quite grown out of and when those distinctly warm eyes turn toward her, Talbot can do nothing but chew down the words she has planned and swallow. 

She is spared, mercifully, when from some corner, Cade shuffles over and blocks her paladin from view. Most of him, at least; Danse is too big a man to hide easily. Or to be hidden from. 

She feels...odd. Not dirty, not proud. Yet, there’s no denying the roiling in her stomach. Probably the nerves that have taken up there since she slipped from the Elder’s quarters. Because Danse might see, might figure it out, and Talbot’s breath hitches again at the thought of his disappointment. 

It’s harder than it should be. 

Finally, Cade ceases his doctoring and the moment she sees an opening, Talbot thrusts one of the glass bottles she’s just swiped from the mess hall into Danse’s chest. 

“Nuka Cola,” she chirps too loudly, “Ice cold if you pretend hard enough.” 

Danse can’t smile, but the corners of his eyes crinkle and the warmth there sparks bright enough so that the woman in front of him can breathe again. 

“No straws!” the medical officer scolds over her shoulder, “Might rupture the stitching.” 

Talbot rolls her shoulders in dismissal. “I haven’t seen a straw in two hundred years, doc, but I’ll keep an eye on the patient just in case.” 

Cade bites off a sharp response she doesn’t hear because Danse is moving suddenly and the reprieve is over and it’s back into the trenches once more. 

The paladin stands, too big for the infirmary, even out of his armor. 

“Dismissed?” 

Talbot grins at the word, muttered as it is through the stitches that crisscross from Danse’s top lip to one nostril. She watches him wriggle his nose when he thinks no one’s looking, undoubtedly testing his limitations, and then shake his head when he’s apparently unsatisfied with the results. 

“Dismissed, Paladin. Come back in three days so I can take another look.” 

The already tight confines of the Prydwen’s hallways seem unbearably smaller now that Talbot is alone with her mentor - her friend, a term less mutually exclusive now than it had been. Damn her soul if she ruins it, she thinks. 

“You holdin’ up, Danse?” she asks, gently, as they walk. 

The big man grunts. He’s had worse. The lack of conversation sets Talbot on edge, however, and she finds her far shoulder pressing along the bulkhead as they move. For once, she doesn’t want to be too near him. He’s Danse and he sees too much and says too little. Maybe, right now - if there is a God – this will be the exception. 

Because the smell of sex, like perfume, clings to her even now and she’s not certain she can wash it away. The peace-offering in Danse’s hands remains untouched and Talbot wishes more than anything that he’d just go ahead and drink the damn thing. 

Though, to be fair, she hasn’t touched hers either. 

A damn swell olive branch. 

As though it’s suddenly the single most important thing she can do, Talbot palms the cola bottle’s top and twists. There’s no give. _Fuck_. Not even soda will take pity on her. 

A string of curses later and suddenly she’s stopped in her tracks, Danse’s large body blocking hers. The bottle is out of her hands and in his in the time it takes her heart to beat. He twists away the cap with a flick of his wrist. His own follows suit and Talbot has to blink several times before she recognizes the tilted cola that’s been extended to her for what it is. She hopes he doesn’t see her tremble when she accepts it. 

“Cheers,” she whispers and clinks her soda against his. 

“Cheers, soldier.” 

She doesn’t care the words are half-slurred and muffled by either numbness or pain or both. Because at least Danse said them and her mind can stop its spinning for a little while. Her sanity may have leapt off the bow of the Prydwen and into the Atlantic a few hours earlier but Danse doesn’t need to know. Not right now. 

They drink their colas and radiation has never tasted so sweet. 

…………………………… 

Talbot is summoned by Captain Kells the next morning at 0900. The time makes no nevermind to her; for the first time in a long while, she has been able to rest. Regardless of the four meager hours of sleep and the dated, probably carcinogenic caffeine trickling through her veins, Talbot _sleeps_. In the torporific stupor, the remnants of Maxson’s touch had faded to familiarity as time and dreams put distance between their sweating bodies. The afterglow had hit her late - only beginning to pulse and ebb when she had sunk down into the firm embrace of her rack. 

She had _known_ that feeling. The residual soreness from bruising hands. The lasting reverberation of male breathing in her ear. Without the young Elder whispering over and under her, it had been easy to surrender the fight to ghosts and echoes. 

Talbot doesn’t remember that dream when she wakes, but it stays with her like the tang of peppermint in a mouth. She can’t take the time for breakfast, isn’t sure who will be there - not Danse, not under orders to rest - so she reports first thing to the Lancer Captain. 

She never listens Kells speak after all these months, her brain tuning out his duty and honor voice like trash radio. Only where and what stick with her. There’s no why, not ever, not from anyone here. 

By 01100 hours, a vertibird is carrying her far away from the night before. The loneliness returns, beats away her brief peace, and Nate’s specter is gone from the empty seat beside her soon after the pilot announces the drop off point. 

She’s alone. 

No heavy presence at her shoulder, no creaking of armored joints, just the jarring whir of rapidly circling blades. 

She’s alone. 

Descending into the mouth of the beast. The vast Commonwealth will swallow her. 

Alone...and looking back into the scarred maw of Hell. The punishment’s coming, her mind thrills, punishment for the night before. The respite seems a cruel illusion now. 

The pilot doesn’t hear her scream to go back, that she can’t do this without Danse. He lowers the bird and the loss of her footing is the only thing that forces Talbot out onto the ground. 

There are no ghosts here; even Nate is afraid of this place, this open-air tomb. A vast cemetery of concrete and scorched earth. 

She’s alone. 

Arthur Maxson has damned her. 

With the rising sun, forgiveness had found her unworthy. This is Hell. 


	13. Chapter 13

Talbot has never been hit by a laser rifle before. 

One moment, she’s walking along and the next, there's a blue ball of something hot charging toward her and then she's cursing into the wind, thrashing and fighting back the tears that are starting to burn her eyes. The Brotherhood sent her here to die. Or maybe karma's actually a thing. Either way, concrete explodes around her and the energy projectiles spit and fizz. 

Once, in a black and white memory from long ago, Nate had said, "I _knew_ that I knew I was bleeding. I figured just knowing was a point in my favor." 

Beside her head, another rapid-fire burst causes dust and dirt to kick up around her, catching on her shoulders and in her lashes like snow. Only it's dead summer and there can’t be snow. Just heat - from the sun and the laser. 

His first Christmas home and she had begged him to wear the blue sweater he looked so beautiful in, a V-neck that exposed a new, well-earned love bite for all his family to see. It revealed a scar, too. The one that marred his collar bone where shrapnel from his final war wound had cut and torn. 

"Bled more than you'd think," she recalls him explaining, the almost shamed tone of his voice had stung her ears and made her eyes well up, "Thought it caught the artery. Then I realized that I knew that I knew I was bleeding..." 

"A point in my favor." 

The words are hissed and Talbot throws herself out from cover with Danse's rifle at her shoulder and soon there is quiet on the deserted street near Greenetech, save for sparking live wires at the mouth of a severed arm from her attacker laying nearby. 

Handsome and young and dying...critically malfunctioning. 

A synth. 

It bends the mind, the sight before her. She's seen the robots, the ones like the sleuth in Fenway Park. 

But this...this is what they've warned her about. She had thought he was a stray raider. 

This boy-thing groans and spasms and the flesh of his arm rides up further to expose bone-colored...metal, maybe? Talbot doesn't know. It can't actually be bone. There's knicks and knacks and science that looks too much like meat and blood. 

"How..." She can’t form the question.  How does he exist? How dare he prove Maxson and the others right about something? 

His weapon is out of reach, clutched loosely in the detached hand lying several feet away. She sweeps it away even so. 

As she leans over him, her rifle pointed at his chest, she is not braced for the wide eyed stare of wonderment. Awed, pale-colored eyes that blink and blink and blink. 

"You...I've seen y-your face. Your," he coughs and groans, "picture." 

Is it programming? Are they programmed to die? To reenact death throes? But, when those wide eyes wrench closed suddenly, it occurs to her that he _hurts_. 

"What?” This time her voice is stronger.  “What are you saying?" Talbot’s words are cut off by a shriek. The boy's back arches and his legs kick out. Blood, or...existence, if nothing else, seeps from three holes in his chest and belly. 

He chokes and sputters like any other man.   

"Am...am I dying? Can I die? They n-never told us.” Talbot watches as the fear sets in, the imminence of what’s coming.  “I am dying. I don't want to. S-stay." 

Her heart clinches - he looks like a young man, just a boy.  Or maybe he's a hundred years old; how should she know? Robots rust and creak and need oiling. She’d thought she'd be able to tell but looking at the expression screwed with pain and fear, he looks as human as she does. A child. One who's dying. One who's seen her before. 

Being alone is likely the only thing that spares her a bullet in the head for what she does next. Even Danse might shoot her if he were here. 

She kneels, if only to pry further before he...shuts down. 

"What picture, kid?” 

It’s a mistake she can’t undo. She doesn’t know why she called him that. It had seemed right. So does the softening of her voice, a gentle lull that no one has pulled from her in two hundred years.   

She goes on and when his remaining hand wraps itself in the felt lining of her jacket, she does not brush him away. 

“You know me? How?" 

From the flutter of his eyelids, she will be alone again soon. 

"Hey, what picture?" 

"I, I don't w-want to -" 

"Die alone,” she says the words for him, “I'm not gonna let you, kid. I’ll...I’ll stay, alright?" 

Just a kid. A kid who had made the mistake of drawing on her first, a kid she's put three holes in and blown off his arm. 

"Tell me, where'd you see a picture?" 

"Father kept it on the s-shelf when I would clean. Your...dress was yellow. I thought, I thought it looked like the sunlight they told me about." 

Talbot can't breathe. Choking on air. 

"His eyes are like yours. I...saw them once...close…when I took too long to p-polish the windows. Please, d-don't, don’t tell...Father you saw me." 

And then he's gone. Like any other dead thing, the shine within his eyes vanishes, there and then not, a vapor and nothing more. Machines are supposed to shut down, explode even, on a bad day, not go with quiet whispers, clinging to a stranger. 

The death leaves her still, her hands unmoving atop his shoulder. The information - those unprompted ramblings - leaves her dizzy. Mind spiraling, drunk and ineptly struggling to draw a rational explanation, Talbot only manages to breathe shallowly. In and out. Alive. She's still alive. He's not. Nate's not. 

Alone again. With a smoking wound on one bicep. The tears in her eyes sting worse. 

The cruelty is too much, burns too deeply. 

Somewhere, in the minute free space of her mind, she realizes she should be sad for this boy's death, angry that some perverse past had driven him to desperation and the unprovoked pull of a trigger, or even be furious that not so far away, there is a man who would see her shot for the fact that her shaking hands grip so tightly to the patchwork coat of a so-called ‘abomination.’ 

She _knows_. Talbot _knows_ she should do more than weep alone. 

But all around her there is a sunny day and a cool, late September breeze. Manicured grass shifts beneath the toes of her pumps and she has to be careful because there's an ant-bed nearby. In her arms, the warm bundle she holds wriggles and she’s caught between smiling brighter or turning further into her husband's embrace to better hide the less than girlish figure she hasn’t seen in nine months. The yellow dress hides the pregnancy weight well and her squirming newborn takes those thoughts away as his milky eyes squint up at her. They'll be the color of her own, she just knows it. 

She can _feel_ the sudden pressing at her shoulder. Shivers when Nate whispers into her ear because she can _hear_ him. 

"Smile, honey!" 

Just in time, she looks up to be blinded by the flash of a camera. The moment is captured. 

Preserved. 

A picture that had rested in the top drawer of a bedroom dresser in Sanctuary Hills. 

Talbot leaves the boy where he lays. Stumbling steps carry her forward and she can't see for the blur of regret in her eyes. Alone, she walks on. And this time, this time she is thankful because there is no one to see her grieve. 

……………………………………….. 

For nearly three days, Maxson’s world returns to normal.  Orders are given and followed. Rest. Wake. Repeat. He could even set a clock by the progression of the third day. 

The surprise, then, pummels him like a cannonball to the chest.  Lancer Captain Kells appears unannounced and nearly leaves the younger man slack-jawed. Especially when he hears Talbot’s name and rank being recited back to him in a well-rehearsed sit-rep. 

“I’ve received no report in over forty-eight hours, sir.  Our outpost at Cambridge has seen no sign of Knight Talbot herself.” 

“What of the patrol that accompanied her?” 

It’s only when Maxson feels Kells’ breath on his chin that he realizes how close he has moved to the officer.   

Kells is undeterred. “There wasn’t one, sir.  It was simply a retrieval from Greenetech Genetics.  The area had been cleared two days prior. Knight Talbot was to acquire the remaining tech and deliver it to the Cambridge scribes.” He continues as though he’s anticipated Maxson’s next question.  “There have been no reports of gunfire from our soldiers in the Cambridge vicinity.” 

“She just...disappeared, Captain? What of the tech?” 

“Scribe Haylen found it deposited at the entrance to the compound last night, Elder.” 

All at once, the Brotherhood’s Elder plummets from growing concern to rage. It swallows him whole and doesn’t have the decency to spit him out.   

“Goddamn that woman!” Maxson snarls and regrets it a half-second later when he sees Kells’ eyes widen at the vehemence in his outburst. He curses her like he means it; hell would do better to take her before Maxson gets a hold to her. 

He can’t breathe beneath the weight of his coat and the shuddering exhalation of his words sounds weak and tired to his own ears. 

“Find me Paladin Danse, Captain. Dismissed.” 

He is left to stew - to _remember_. Even now, he recalls the way Talbot had keened into his shoulder, the way she had forced him closer, deeper.  She had taken the want from him and left him with a need.  The need for company, for challenge, for the base, burning desire to have a wet and willing place to bury himself.  For the first time in three days, Maxson _wants_ to kill her. 

The seven short minutes it takes for the Paladin to report are not nearly enough for Maxson to dam the flood of anger that is building with each passing thought. 

“Elder Maxson -” 

“You know her best, Danse. Where would she be?” He rounds on the man, eyes the stitching and the bruises and suddenly wants to laugh because this is what it’s come to. Dependency. Damn that woman. 

“Knight Talbot -” 

“Yes!” the confirmation is ripped from his chest. A stupid question. “Who else? Have you been briefed?” 

“Negative, sir.” 

“She’s gone again,” Maxson does not miss the shift in the other man’s stance, the uncertainty...and something else. Something that isn’t quite surprise. Just the slightest dip of Danse’s heavy brow and a glance toward the ground. 

Ah, disappointment. The feeling’s mutual. 

The added slight of, “Most likely of her own accord,” that follows is said for meanness and Maxson isn’t immediately sure why. But the words are meant to dig at the Paladin, barbs intended to sting. He tells himself it’s due to Danse’s failing as a mentor; there is no other reason, can’t be.   

Maxson takes a step nearer the man, has to look up to meet Danse’s eyes, and suddenly, inexplicably, hates the man all the more intensely. For years, Danse has been the tallest man in the Prydwen’s roster - a fact based in quantifiable feet and inches.  Maxson’s never noticed before, never cared.  Never felt so fucking inadequate in the presence of another man.   

He exhales slowly and there’s a burning behind his back where his nails have broken through the skin of his clasped palms. 

“Where would she be, Danse?” 

Something in his voice changes; he feels it as surely as the Paladin hears it.  Danse, in all his experience soldiering, catches onto it like laser fire at midnight. 

Like a target who moves just out of the crosshairs as the trigger’s pulled, Danse straightens and for the first time in his career, there is the faintest flash of defiance in the man’s eyes. 

“I don’t know, Elder.” 

It’s a goddamn, fucking lie. 

Peas in a pod, Talbot and Danse. 

Sedition begets sedition, it would seem, no matter the soldier.  The woman isn’t even present and yet she’s bleeding into everything, polluting it.  Maxson can still feel her hands raking down his back, had seen the marks there this very morning as he’d dressed. Almost idly, amidst a flare of temper, he wonders if he were to peel back the leather of Danse’s fatigues, would the lesser man have the same? Branded like property? 

Before Maxson can so much as draw back, Danse speaks again, all calm seas and wooden, tamed emotion.   

“By your leave, Elder, I’ll report to Cambridge Police Station immediately. I’ll find her, sir.” 

The Elder hates that he believes the man, when the very last words out of Danse’s mouth had been a lie. 

“Get out,” spit flies from between Maxson’s lips, a rabid animal, “Find her, Paladin, or don’t come back.” 

  


	14. Chapter 14

How odd, Talbot thinks, right damned _peculiar_ to see him here. Anybody else would seem an interloper. Unwelcome. This place - this museum - is hers. Hers and _his_. But he’s gone and so is the roof. Most of the walls left fifty or so years ago. The fallen leaves that she’s swept out from the living room still rest just outside the doorway. 

Her paladin tracks through them on his way inside, stands over the threshold and stares back at her. Those warm eyes have cooled now. She thinks he might even be angry with her. But then his eyes narrow marginally and she can see by the stilling of his breath that he has caught sight of the tears on her cheeks. 

“You found me,” she hiccups and for once she’s content not to hide the weakness in her voice. Not from Danse. 

The last man who had stood in this house was hers. From the corner of her eye, she can still see him pressed against the island, newspaper in one hand and coffee in the other. Like he’d done before the world had ended. 

It’s over now, the end since passed and the world’s moved on. Talbot hasn’t. Can’t yet. Not after the boy at Greenetech. Because this place was still theirs, was still what was left of home, unintruded upon. A chapel where only she could pray. 

Until Danse’s shadow had filled the doorway and just like that, Nate is no longer the last man to draw breath in this place. 

Talbot doesn’t mind. Danse can stay, can remain as the one new thing within these old walls. 

He holds his body like he might yet turn and walk away, go back to the power armor he’s parked on the lawn. That’s when those soldier’s eyes, those post-wartime eyes, fall on the tri-fold American flag that lays in his knight’s lap, and finally, to the dingy, unreadable book between Talbot’s fingers. A children’s book. Her child’s book. The child with eyes like hers. 

Talbot hasn’t let herself linger on Shaun in a long time. One too many leads had dried up in her early post-apocalyptic wanderings. Shaun, she could believe was alive. Gone, yes, but not like his father. She let go of the baby she hardly knew, the one her Nate had died protecting. She let go but she didn’t forget. 

She hadn’t remembered what color her boy’s eyes were until three days ago. Just milky and unclear in her memory - baby eyes. Just baby eyes. 

The little book makes no noise as it slips to the ground. 

“Maxson sent you.” It’s not a question. She’s on the verge of hysteria with that single sentence. Wishes she could take back that name, never let it cross her lips or her mind in this place. There’s no room for him and Nate both to haunt these empty rooms. Speak of the devil and so shall he appear, she fears. One trembling hand touches regretfully at her mouth too late; the name is in the air now and it’s smoking like a barrel. 

“Jesus, Danse, don’t stand there. Come - come in. Excuse the mess. Nuke’s are hell on the upholstery.” It’s an exercise in telekinesis; if she can _make_ him come closer, she will. 

Blood and pulsing muscle is loud. A big, bass speaker in her ears as she waits. 

The world plays in slow-motion - taunting, teasing, will he, won’t he, until the hysterics threaten to bubble up again, renewed and fierce in vigor. But yet, with just two small steps forward, Danse chases the elephant out of the room and Talbot’s blood pressure settles. 

“Talbot,” his words stall and it’s alright because he’s never been good at this. A few more steps and he’s reached her but he won’t sit down and Talbot has the urge to stand and kick him squarely in the knee for spite. 

Instead, a large hand, one covered in dirt and black grease, reaches down and gently, too damn gently, takes the flag from her lap. If anyone else had dared, she would have them flat of their back and bloody by now. Danse dusts away the first grimy layer from the glass and frame. His fingers tense as though afraid he might drop it. 

“This was your husband’s?” He pauses, considering. “Nate’s?” 

He’s the first person born in this century to speak Nathaniel Talbot’s name. 

Talbot only nods. The relic looks foreign and small within Danse’s grasp. 

“Why now, Eulalia?” he asks and the name causes her eyes to squeeze shut. “What’s happened?” 

He knows. He _knows_ and it hurts and she’s going to die before she manages to explain why or how or anything else. 

Months ago, not long after meeting him, she had sworn to him that she’d never return to Sanctuary Hills. She doesn’t know why she’s surprised that he would remember it. The first blooming respect for him had sprouted from the fact that he had taken her snappish vow seriously enough and had the sense never to pry. 

Talbot stands too quickly. She needs to move away, far away from their place in front of the dilapidated television set and the broken picture window. That’s where _they_ had stood when the news broadcast cut out and sirens drowned out their fear. Bad things happen when she stands here. Two hundred solid pounds of man are at her heels as she flees across the room. 

She stops in the kitchen, if only because she’s distracted, having caught sight of the faded notes that remain on the fridge after all this time. 

She speaks, but she does not look away from this brutal new find. 

“Mother always said that once you leave, you can never go home.” 

She had grown up in the coastlands of the Deep South. Had never gone back. Hadn’t needed to when she’d found Nate. A new home. Talbot wishes she could see her paladin more clearly, but there are tears in her eyes and if she so much as blinks, they’ll start falling. 

“Do they still say that, Danse? Have you heard that?” 

He nods once. 

“It’s true,” the bitter pill passes her lips in a whisper, “There’s nothing left here.” 

Any other man who understood her less might have pulled her close or even shied away once the dam breaks. Danse just places a steadying hand on her shoulder. 

“Alright, soldier.” 

Nothing more, nothing less. Just acquiescence. She doesn’t have to explain right now. He’ll stand by her at this empty gravesite. It’s not home any longer but now Talbot knows, and she doesn’t have to face that realization alone. 

For a long moment, neither of them bothers to move. It is only the slight shift in the pressure of Danse’s hand as it trails slowly from Talbot’s shoulder to the upper part of one arm that makes the quaking stop. Blood and pus started seeping through the makeshift bandage hours ago. More of a burn than a bullet hole, two days of inattention have left it dirty and leaking. 

His voice is quiet, but somehow scolding all the same. “Your skills as a field medic aren’t very impressive. The soldiers at Cambridge didn’t report any gunfire.” 

It’s a question. What happened? 

There’s a flash of silver-blue in her memory, silver-blue set deep and fading in a young, manufactured face. 

“Just one.” The response is mechanical. Hollow. “He surprised me. I was all the way out at Greenetech.” 

Danse doesn’t ask why she didn’t report in at Cambridge. He must have seen the answer when he came in the door, found it in the irritated shadows of Talbot’s eyes. 

They are in bathroom a short minute later and Danse’s hands prove surprisingly adept at juggling antibiotic cream, astringent, and a mass of cotton and gauze. The supplies emerge from a compact kit taken from the pocket of his uniform. The worst this bathroom has ever seen was a pinched thumb from when Nate had installed a new light fixture. Laser wounds are something new for this place. 

Removing her outermost shirt doesn’t faze her much; Talbot tugs it off without being asked, leaving just a flimsy tank over her skin. The chills only start when Danse’s fingers begin to unwrap the ruined cloth that hides her wound. Warm hands, she remembers as her flesh prickles. Hot, really. Feverish. More than usual. 

Skin passing over hers calms her and she lets him work, leaning against the wall. If he notices her watching him in the mirror, Talbot can’t say. How different it is - this new reflection, moving at her side, around her. Swarthy where the last had been fair. 

She had stood in this very place that morning, in another lifetime, and had watched him shave and trim, primp for the afternoon they had believed was ahead. Now, it is a head thick with dark hair bowed over her, as intent on proper doctoring as Nate had been on not nicking himself. 

But...so very different. Among the faded walls and molded shower, Danse _fits_. Like a puzzle piece. The wasteland lying just outside and the gaping holes and ruined paneling don’t seem so appalling all of a sudden. As the seconds tick by, with hot, strangely unsteady breath ghosting over her shoulder, this place feels more like ruins than home. Skeletal remains, with the flesh rotted away until Talbot no longer recognizes the face she had once loved so well. 

It reminds her of an airport goodbye. Raw emotion and weepy tears in one long, immediate moment and then, with the loved one out of sight, gone from view down a sterile hall, for her life, she can’t quite recall what was just said or how they looked. Even the pain seems distant. Talbot _remembers_ hurting, not ten minutes ago, knows she’d had tears in her eyes, but the cause is suddenly hazy. The things that had happened here are all at once a long way away. 

“I was coming back,” she admits quietly, _truthfully_ , as Danse ties off the fresh gauze around her arm. 

Nothing is said and if he believes her, there’s no telling. 

The hand that has been so attentive does not leave her, much to her surprise. She only notices because she has looked up to find Danse squinting _past_ the wound. 

The heat, the peaceful, settling epiphany - it all evaporates as an all-encompassing dread crushes it down. 

Bruises. 

The marks from blunt nails and strong fingers. 

On her arms and back. There are even teeth marks peeking over the top of one breast and Danse is going to see because he’s a foot taller than her and is looking down - 

His fingers, scarred and so callused, run over a bruise at the base of her neck. Touching her where Maxson had. So much gentler. Inspecting. Medical. Concerned? 

“Must’ve got personal.” 

She doesn’t trust the remark. Couldn’t have heard it correctly. 

“Anything broken?” 

Talbot snatches herself away from the man as if he’s held a lighter to her. 

“No! No, I’m fine. Just the laser.” 

He doesn’t follow her as she retreats into the bedroom that had once been hers and she hears him a few minutes later. Outside, gone to his power armor to tinker and check the bolts and screws, tighten them down, polish until it shines. 

Talbot can only stand the silence for so long. With her old shirt back on, she tiptoes out to the front steps and sits down without a word to watch him work. “Don’t speak,” goes unspoken. By nightfall, he is forced to stop and together, they choose an area of the house to sleep. The bed has long since collapsed but the couch is no longer as daunting as it had been earlier. Danse remains nearby, stretched out atop a sleeping bag in the corner. 

It is the first night she ever spends in Sanctuary Hills without Nate. 

In the dark, she vows that it will be her last under this roof. 

Tomorrow, Talbot thinks, she will do what she has to. What she needs. 

……………………………….. 

Come morning, Danse’s face is blank. Shell-shocked. As if Talbot’s dropped a live mini-nuke in his lap and if he so much as blinks, it’s going to explode. 

When the surprise finally fades, he offers her a short nod of agreement and after a strictly rationed breakfast, they go together to the backyard. Two shovels, scavenged from the neighboring houses, is all they have and for hours they dig until a two and half by eight feet scar has opened up in the earth behind the house. Danse has to boost Talbot up and out when they finish. At six feet, the hole is well above her head. 

It’s time. 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Talbot had a theme song, it might be Dori Freeman's "Where I Stood." Maxson sings it to her with his scavenged acoustic guitar. In-game fact. Check the wiki.

Maxson receives word through the grapevine that Paladin Danse has located the wayward knight. “Wounded and needing medical attention. ETA four days,” the brief report says. There are unhelpful mentions of an ‘emergency situation of a personal nature’ that only cause the Elder’s scowl to deepen. 

As estimated, the coming Sunday sees a vertibird from Cambridge dock just past noon and from it emerges a haggard and dead-eyed Talbot with her babysitter close behind. Maxson watches from above, spies the sling in which Talbot’s arm hangs. Incompetent or accident prone, he can no longer be sure, but she is unsteady on her feet as she is led up the stairs to the main deck. 

Within the hour, he requests both the knight and her paladin’s presence in the observation room. 

He means to harden his heart, steel himself for proud, arrogant eyes. 

There are none to be seen. 

A stranger stands before him, unrecognizable and unknown. Danse positions himself closer to her than is appropriate but Maxson can see why - he means to catch the pieces should they crumble. 

“Report, Paladin.” The order is perhaps less harsh than it should be. But Maxson can only stare, distracted by this never before seen, utterly unexpected conundrum. It is a paradox against everything he has established as truth, this new frailty that stands before him. 

“Knight Talbot retrieved the tech as ordered, Elder, but was wounded en route to Cambridge Police Station. She,” the paladin glances down and a desperate hope to find Talbot looking anywhere but at the ground shines in his eyes. She disappoints. “She...The encounter prompted her to return to the Sanctuary Hills area, near Vault 111. It... was an important personal matter that I helped her resolve upon finding her.” 

Maxson’s frown is a hard one. He turns his focus to Danse. “A personal matter?” 

“Yes, Elder.” 

“Personal enough to disobey orders?” He does not expect the reprimand to be as difficult as it is, though he had never thought to see Eulalia Talbot so broken. “Explain, Knight -” 

Danse steps forward. Bold of him, but unwise. “Elder -” 

“Quiet, Paladin. Knight Tal-” 

“We buried him.” 

Her voice is weak. Maxson would not believe it was Talbot’s if he had not been looking at her as she spoke. 

“I had to... _bury_ him.” 

The final words are whispered so softly that Maxson can’t hear them. He sees the quiver of her mouth though, as the explanation ends, and the way her those eyes of hers - so casually cold until today - glitter with unshed tears. 

Talbot, it would seem, is capable of heartache. 

The feeling of foolishness that arises upon his discovery of this causes his cheeks to flush beneath his beard, as though he’s surprised that she’s revealed herself as more human than stone. It does not make it any easier to square his shoulders and press on. To be the Brotherhood Elder and not the man who’d fucked her when no one was looking. 

“You buried whom?” 

Talbot releases a shaky breath, one that might clue a weaker man to stop this interrogation. But Maxson must go on. Twice now, she has denied her responsibilities, her duty to the Brotherhood over _personal_ reasons. It cannot stand. 

Any other soldier, he reminds himself. 

“Knight Talbot,” a sharp voice, hard eyes...the facade is a difficult one to keep up, “Explain yourself.” 

“My husband, Maxson. I buried my husband.” 

With those words, the strength spent holding back her tears leaves her, torn from her, and Maxson can say nothing as her words strike him low in the belly and drive the air from his lungs. At Talbot’s side, Danse’s eyes have fallen shut and Maxson swears he can _feel_ the disapproval rolling off the man in waves. He feels it because he should have known better, with every glare from Danse and every shake of the woman’s body screaming at him not to demand more, to let it go this time, he should have known better. 

But he has to say something because if he doesn’t then it means he cares too much and that cannot be tolerated. 

“I...see.” Pitiful, weak words. The only ones he can muster. Looking to Danse so that he doesn’t have to look at Talbot, doesn’t have to see her tears, Maxson manages what must be said next. 

“Paladin, I expect a full report in writing by tomorrow morning. Your recommendation will be,” he exhales and he knows Danse will hate him for comes next, “taken into consideration in regards to the disciplinary action for Knight Talbot. Dismissed, Paladin.” 

Danse hesitates a moment too long but the salute that eventually follows is a sharp one, if only from habit. 

Talbot does not watch the paladin depart; Maxson isn’t sure that she notices at all. 

When the door has hissed shut behind Danse, Maxson dares not step any closer to the woman than he already stands. The realization that it is the first time they are alone as lovers passes unremarkably. Fleeting and unimportant. 

There remains a steel grip on Maxson’s heart that won’t turn loose. It’s squeezing and he doesn’t know how to react because it’s something new. 

A husband. 

He had known she was attached at one point, however briefly or otherwise; she had a son, after all. He understands basic biology. But there had been no mention of surviving relatives in her file. The cut goes deeper than expected and Maxson is not braced for the sting. Part of it, he knows, is from realizing he’s been played for a fool. He might even be angry once the shock of it has passed. 

“You need to explain.” It is not a request. 

“Do I?” Talbot looks hardly more than a child as she swipes her good arm over her eyes. 

“Your file says you crawled out of a vault.” Despite what he has sworn not to do, Maxson takes a dangerous step forward. Another places him a mere foot from her. “You made no mention that someone was with you!” 

“Damn you, Maxson,” the words lack volume but not conviction, “Damn your soul, you sonofabitch.” 

“Talbot-” 

“ _No_.” Sharp, gleaming teeth bare up at him, bringing to mind a wounded and cornered animal. One all the more viscious for the hurt. “No, Maxson. This is not about _you_. It was never about you. I just buried a man better than you could even pretend to be.” 

It’s gunfire. Ballistics striking him with each snarled syllable. 

Even through her tears, her voice is sterner than it had been a moment before, as if even in the depths of her grief, her bite is as wicked as her bark. It doesn’t matter; she’s already left him bleeding. 

"Don't," she says and Maxson knows it's a warning without meeting her eyes, "make this about you." 

A shuddering breath, almost a gasp, escapes her and then she’s standing a fraction taller. 

"Do what you want, Elder. I did what I had to." 

Facing her down has never seemed so perilous. It is a dangerous line he has to cross. This time she’s using live ammunition. Mortar rounds that might obliterate him if he doesn’t find his footing. 

"You can't come and go on whims." Maxson tries to meet her eyes, hopes beyond hope that she'll understand. "I can't allow it, Talbot." 

Her lips press thin and white and somehow he knows she's disappointed. Whether it's in him as a man or because she has not escaped unscathed this time around, he can't know for certain. 

"Understood, sir." 

That hits him harder than anything else. Those two words are what ring in his ears once she has gone. The dismissal, the acceptance, the blatant truth that she doesn’t give a damn about how conflicted he is. 

When he tells her that she may leave, it is as cool a departure as the very first time he'd ever said it. A mother turning her back on a pouting child, placating him because it's too much trouble to argue. This time, he is _lost_. 

She doesn't hear him call her back. The name's whispered too softly, not nearly as loud as the mechanical hiss that tells him she's gone. 

……………………………………. 

That night, he dreams of her. Whiskey dreams he won't be proud of come morning. It is a nightmare more than anything. 

It's under a clouded sky that he takes her. Somewhere far away from the Prydwen’s shadow. Flat of her back, she stares up, past him and try as he might, fucking harder, deeper, pumping into her until he's grunting with exertion, he can't make her see him. 

Her name won't leave his lips; growling like a beast one moment and mute the next. 

He can't speak, try as he might. 

The air around him sparks. He can smell the tang of ozone, the approaching storm. So close, close enough to raise the hair on his arms, but when the first clap of thunder rolls, it seems too far. Pieces of a puzzle he can't quite fit together. 

But thoughts of the weather have distracted him and before he can snap his hips into the knight once more, a small hand closes around his throat. 

She overpowers him with a flash of her eyes, finally meeting his and then finding him undeserving as she tightens her grip and looks to the sky. 

He should be able to lift her easily but she's weighted down, anchored to him in this night-world that makes no sense. 

And she rides him. She rides him with her head back and her gaze turned away. Tits bouncing as prettily in the eye of a storm as they do when she's spread on his rack. Maxson can only stare as the wet heat of her slides up to the tip of his cock, spread wide over the mushroom tip of it, and then she snaps back down until he's bottomed out and groaning with only her ass cheeks to hold on to. 

Rain falls. A deluge that almost hides her from him. It fills his mouth, thick like oil, chokes him. And all the while Talbot’s grip closes down around him. Small, easily broken fingers grip him harder as her body snaps forward over his, her ass raking his balls and it should hurt and he should be drowning by now but the only thing that's going to kill him is her. 

A strike of lightening takes her away. A flash of incoherency and then he is alone and wanting… 

She is nowhere to be found. With the darkness closing in, she abandons him. A crack of lightening brings him to his feet and he _searches_. Around him the storm blows in and on its wind the sounds of cries drag Maxson further into the black. He should not go. Would not, if it were up to him. 

Dreams don’t bring dread with them. Anxiety over what he is bound to find, what he has brought on himself. His own mind tortures him in ways that would make Talbot proud. 

It is cruel, the sight that greets him when he does find her. It seems a vast distance between them, yet she writhes only a few feet away, and he already knows no matter how he fights and claws that there is no way he can cross it. He is forced to watch through eyes that cannot look away. 

Talbot lies just beyond. And it is not with him. Someone else, a blank face, nondescript. Any man. But it is not him. 

She bares herself to the stranger. Openly. Touches him with tender hands across his chest. As the air ripples and lightning cracks the darkness, Maxson's own chest twinges as she runs a pink tongue from one dark nipple to another. He sees how she revels in the way those foreign hands run down from the roots of her hair, gently, softly. 

Lovingly. 

More than a lover. 

A husband. 

It is a betrayal from his own mind. His own subconscious that keeps him from reaching her, even as he leaps and falls short. Unable to pull this trespasser from the knight, Maxson cries out. Demands a ceasefire. 

It is too late; she winds around the body and lifts herself high in waiting. Her plea hurts his ears. A plea he has never heard, a pitch to her voice that has never been for him. It grows louder, a shrill whine as the other takes his erection in hand and strokes, teasing her without cruelty. The keening that follows is a black curse and Maxson hates them both for it. 

The rain that bites at his shoulders does not impair his vision, not as he watches as the man slips lower, forgoing what has been offered. 

Maxson's stomach drops. 

It cannot feel so different from the people who had watched the bombs tear apart the world all those years ago. The emptiness that opens up inside him feels like bullets passing through; then, in short order, anger and disbelief and denial well up to take its place, pressing like bandages to the wound. 

Knowing it is a dream does not make it easier to accept. 

Maxson suddenly knows without having seen, without having heard, he knows who it is that is grunting into Talbot’s spread legs, whose back it is that her heels press into. 

Her fingers are lost in the thick, dark hair, gripping it like reins and pulling until her knuckles are white. She's screams a name that is not Maxson's and she does not hear him as he roars back, outraged at his own mind for forcing this upon him. 

When he had no image to supply, his own imagination did the work for him. The likeliest candidate. 

The lover heaves a heavy breath against her thigh, partly to kiss and partly to wipe away the essence of her that has caught in his scruff. 

Maxson can smell their sex in the air. It reeks in his nose like formaldehyde. 

He curses himself as his mind forces them onward. Damns himself over and over because he can't escape. 

He has to witness her reach to her own outer lips and spread them, hoisting her hips up to force herself closer to the cock that has moved up to meet her, poised to thrust forward. 

It is as torturous for Maxson as it is for her. A slow entrance, unhurried as inch by inch Talbot is stretched to screaming. 

A male groan cuts the air, louder than the worsening storm. 

Maxson hates the man violently. 

He hates how his hips roll and snap, how he reaches to brush away tears that have welled at the corners of Talbot’s eyes with scarred and callused fingers. 

It is a furious thing, the way Maxson struggles to reach them. He runs and he shouts and he strikes the air but the few feet between them never changes. He can look nowhere save for at the bobbing of her breasts and the hand that kneads them, the lips that close over one nipple and nip until she's all but weeping that forsaken name. 

Her lover's massive body stretches back, his spine arching as muscles flex and contract, maintaining the maddening, steady strokes of his cock. It glistens with the wet of her, the black hair at its base matted with both rain and desire. One thrust and then another, pulling out until the tip's nearly exposed, sheathed only in the foreskin that makes her pleasure a part of him. To the eye, it’s nothing but lust between them but it's more, it's so much more, Maxson can tell, because Talbot is looking back at the man who holds her and her smile grows wider each time he grunts her first name. 

“Talbot!” 

Maxson's eyes open to find darkness and he knows he has called her name aloud. Echoes of her bounce back, whispering over the creaking of the Prydwen’s steel. The sudden awareness is merciless; he can feel the throbbing pain of an erection pulling at the edge of his pants. 

He means to fuck himself until he forgets. 

There is no hesitation as Maxson wraps his hand around his cock, too desperate, too bitter, and unashamed for the time being if it means the want for her will stop. Without oil or water to slick himself, he spits into one fist and runs the hand over himself, pulls a moan from his own lips and then grits his teeth against another. 

The hand that's free presses hard as it slides from his abdomen to a pelvic area thick with dark hair and he presses down, puts weight there and pretends it's her. 

Her and her alone. All to himself. 

" _Fuck_." 

The curse is louder than he means it to be and the one that follows more so, as his lip curls and his head falls back with each upward thrust. 

Just fingertips now, tugging at his cockhead and back down just far enough for the warmth of his palm to envelope him. A poor excuse for Talbot. His other hand works at the muscles above his straining prick, rolls back and forth, until his arm shakes from the exertion. 

He forgets the dream, forces it from his mind with memories. Real ones that had happened where he now lays. Remembers how it felt to have that woman sighing beneath him. The softness of the sound. Short breaths in his ear. 

The recollection undoes him. 

He doesn't bother to cover his head. This time he wants to feel his own seed as it falls against him, pulse after pulse without moving to staunch it and pretending all the while that it's Talbot’s cunt clenched over him. Emptying himself into her might kill him. The thought of it pulls one last shot that sticks hot against his chest before he's too exhausted to do anything other than suck in a breath of stale, empty air. 


	16. Chapter 16

Maxson isn't sure if Danse has proven himself the better man or more the fool. To Danse, Talbot’s exemplary combat record over the past few months and the corresponding results should earn of her some mercy. "Unique circumstances" is how the man describes his protégé - a living pre-war relic who is only still learning the importance of the Brotherhood. Surely, a month of basic fieldwork with the scribes at Cambridge will do her good. Danse, unsurprisingly, is frank in his suggestion that he supervise the efforts. 

Supervise. Hovering obediently over her shoulder all the while. 

Not on the coldest day in hell. 

Maxson stops reading after that. 

A month away from the structure and procedure of the Prydwen will do more harm than good. Likewise, _both_ knight and paladin would benefit from time apart. Danse, Maxson decides, is due for another deployment to the field. Back to his old team. Let him relearn how to manage subordinates. And Talbot… 

Maxson has half a mind to relieve her of her post. 

The prospect of having his days return to normal is at the very least as appealing as nailing her to the nearest piece of furniture. And his nights...he wants to be able to sleep peacefully again. There is an entire Commonwealth in need of Brotherhood attention and progress has been slower than acceptable. The Institute scourge remains, nevermind the abundance of mutants and raiders. 

He has been distracted long enough. 

For the second time in twenty-four hours, the knight and paladin are called to report to their Elder. Neither of them appears thrilled with the idea when they appear, though one makes less show of it than the other. Talbot’s arm is lacking the sling from the day before, likely courtesy of Cade, and Danse’s stitches have been removed, leaving a swollen and angry gouge behind. 

To her credit, Talbot’s mask has been restored to its former glory. 

Maxson will see how long it takes to crack. 

“Danse, how long has it been since your reconnaissance mission at Cambridge?” 

“Six months and twenty-two days, Elder.” 

Maxson catches the narrowing of Talbot’s eyes at the question. 

“And how has the team’s progress been in your absence?” 

Danse answers smoothly. “Outstanding, sir. Scribe Haylen has maintained a constant stream of technical discoveries and Knight Rhys manages the support team you supplied well enough to control the ghouls and mercenaries in the area -” 

“Yes, I’ve kept an eye on Haylen’s reports. Impressive work.” 

There is a swell of pride in the way the way Paladin Danse lifts his chin. Good. 

“Our presence to the south is not as....developed as I would like, as I’m sure you’re aware. Paladin, I would like for you take a team of four, including Scribe Haylen, from the Cambridge outpost and scout southwards. Find locations beneficial to the Brotherhood and interact with what settlements you encounter. Recruit, if you’re able. Radio reports back to the Prydwen and keep hostile engagement to a minimum. I can spare you for eight weeks, at which point I expect a full report here on the Prydwen.” 

Talbot cannot contain herself any longer. The aggravated tick that began from Maxson’s first uttered syllable develops into the noisy popping of her fingers. 

“When do we leave?” she asks. 

“The Paladin departs tomorrow. 0800 sharp.” 

“Am I swimming?” she snaps, mordant, and it makes Maxson arch a brow. “Or do I get to ride the bird, too?” 

“Knight!” 

It is Danse’s chastising voice, not the Elder’s, that rebukes her. His plan of action has kicked up dust in her face and she’s swatting through it as anticipated. The threat of being parted from Danse is enough to drive her to disobedience to the man. 

“Issues, Knight Talbot?” 

“Not half so many as you have.” 

Her mourning has made her volatile, removed what subtlety she had previously wielded to her advantage. 

Danse’s firm hand cannot hold her back as she steps forward, even as the Paladin’s bark cuts through the air loud enough to cause the soldiers in the hallway to turn from their duties and look. 

“That’s enough, soldier!” 

It is the second of his orders she ignores. 

Maxson meets her at the line. Toe to toe. 

“Tread carefully, Knight.” 

There’s danger in the flexing of her hands and the way she’s at the balls of her feet, to hell with the collateral damage. With the sunken, purple-blue rings around her eyes, she looks almost feral. 

No, the night had not been kind to her either. 

“Don’t threaten _me_ , Maxson.” It is not a mother’s tone, but one of command - heavy and obvious in its warning. She knows others are watching; she’s counting on it. Understands he can’t let such insubordination pass. 

It is a trap to draw him out into the open. One that snaps around his ankle and closes before he knows what’s happened. 

Through clenched teeth, he hisses, “You are not above reproach just because of what we -” 

Time stops ticking with a single, disbelieving jerk of Danse’s head. Maxson spots it from the corner of his eye and knows in one brutal moment that the dirty laundry has been aired. 

The Prydwen has suddenly become enemy territory. One wrong move and the entire ship will explode with scuttlebud. The knights standing across the hall, the officers by the stairwell who have heard the raised voices...one wrong move, one centimeter nearer the edge, one more word spoken too loudly and it will all end. 

There had never even been an upper hand for him to gain. 

She had distracted him alright - with weary eyes and slumped shoulders, made him believe she was beaten, the weakened animal easily picked off from the herd. Had flashed an opening in her armor that never really existed. Smoke and mirrors to lure him onto a grand stage. 

Maxson is at _their_ mercy - Talbot and her goddamn pet and every face that stands a few yards away. 

She dares him with a sneer and the bat of her eyes. “Because of _what_ , Elder?” 

She’ll accept the blow to her pride, must be that confident in Danse’s devotion to her. Because she lets himhear, knows he’s slack-jawed at her back. A calculated risk weighed during the witching hours. 

Maxson’s jaw cracks and for too long, there is only the sound of leather protesting the expanding of his muscles as he flexes. 

Outmaneuvered. Played. 

Any other time, he might have admired her. To recover how she has, to choke down the dirt in her mouth and fight to her feet, all for the sake of ruining him should he make her. 

He _can’t_. 

In front of his soldiers, Arthur Maxson surrenders. 

“I...misspoke...0800 tomorrow morning. The both of you.” 

And just that quickly, the war is over. She stands the victor. Willing to make the sacrifice he could not. 

If devotion makes her brutal, then his tactic to divide and conquer reduced her to savagery. He had been as unprepared as Boston on October 23, 2077. Confident and proud and then gone, swept away by an attack he never saw coming. She is the most ruthless tactician this ship has ever seen. If Maxson were a superstitious man, he could believe that the storm from his dream might’ve marked the end. 

Under the red glow of the stairwell lights, the unknowing pawns go back to murmuring amongst themselves, concerns of super mutants and bland food. There remains one, however, who does not escape so cleanly. 

Danse won’t meet his eyes. Or maybe Maxson won’t meet his. The effect is the same. An admission of guilt. 

He waves his hand, numb to his fingers. 

Get out, go. 

And they do. 

Together, they depart and Maxson can’t hear the world for the pounding of his heart in his ears. 

……………………………………… 

Given the last two evenings, a stranger might think he was a drinking man. Tonight, the bourbon doesn’t burn hot enough as it goes down. If there is no bite, then there’s no point and Maxson puts the bottle back into the depths of the drawer from which he’d drawn it. 

How she moves so quietly, he’ll never figure out. As if she’s a ghost and he’s alone one second and the next, feels the chill of someone standing across the room. The hinges of his door could do with less oiling - perhaps a safety measure, if her silent appearance is any indication. Might lead to a knife in the back. 

“There are proper channels,” to his own ears, his voice is pathetically void of any command, “You might consider using them.” 

He doubts he’s imagining the smile on her lips. 

She speaks and there should be music in the background to further the lull of it, the melodic spell. 

"You didn't give me a choice, Maxson.” Her feet shuffle against the floor. “With Nate gone, I...Danse understands. You can't take me from him. I’m not ready. I won't let you." 

Nate. Nate and Danse. 

One’s gone and the other is worth ruining the world for. Maxson can’t look, not yet. It’s safer to keep his back to her, to ignore the knife that will come shortly.  
"You'll be demoted when you return. To initiate. What you did today..." He shakes his head. "Make your peace, Talbot, I don't care."  
"Thank you, Maxson." 

Those words - they have him spinning. Both to his feet and in his mind. Whatever meekness the burial had seemingly left her with is gone. She stands the quiet champion, firm and unyielding, waiting for his tantrum. Maxson finds he no longer has the energy to expend on fighting her. What little he has left must be reserved for purpose alone, the one that had brought them both to this wasteland. 

"Elder," it is a reminder for them both, "Elder." 

He does not expect her to come to him. Much less to touch him. 

A single, delicate finger under his chin, coaxing his eyes up. Restoring his pride or maybe erasing what's left of it. 

"Maxson," she sighs, "You're Maxson." 

He can't be sure if the whisper of her lips against his is fantasy or reality. 

Is does not matter anymore. 

He turns his head from her. "Don't. Just go." 

Her fingers sweep from one side of his jaw to the other, trailing through the beard that has grown out. A light thumb passes over the ridge of his cheek and back into his hair. It is enough to make his eyes fall closed. 

"Open them," her voice breaks the reverie, "let me look." 

He obeys. 

"Like a photograph." An observation spoken aloud; he doubts it's meant for him. 

But the tenderness has him wary, and he can’t afford to play this game any longer. "What is?" 

There is a quirk at the corner of her mouth that tells him all he needs to know. 

Somewhere inside, he recognizes the trick; he knows he's being set up like a tower of cards. The last few weeks, this morning, this moment, and every word she utters is a carefully placed face card. 

Idly, he wonders how many she can possibly have left to play. 

When she kisses him again, he let's her, allows her warm tongue to dart and dance against his lips. Who she is thinking of, he is no longer certain. A dead man or the fellow soldier to whom she clings so dearly. 

She whispers his name, _his name_ , and Maxson can taste the lie on her breath. 

Arsenic. 

She is the most merciless thing to happen since the day the bombs fell. 

He hears the unzipping of his fatigues before he feels it and does nothing to catch her hand as it drags down from his throat to his belly. The leather is shed like a second skin. Her hands are cold; icy fingers that leave raised flesh in their wake as she runs them over his shoulders and down his back. 

He sighs when her lips leave his mouth and trace down to his throat, smooth as razor blades that will leave him for dead. 

It would be so easy to cut himself one last time, as his hands tangle in her hair and he recalls his dream from the night before, can see in his mind's eye the way the other's fingers had weaved and teased. Maxson does the same. Just this once, he promises himself, only for a moment and then he will stop this lunacy before it consumes him. There’s going to be nothing left of him. 

Then the killing blow - the heat of her tongue lashes against a peaked nipple and his head drops back, spilling out the sanity he has left. 

"Unh...harder." 

Talbot follows the command and her teeth clench down and tug, and he is a powerless, pathetic excuse of a man because he groans aloud like a whore. The only reprieve he is granted is the time it takes her to reach the other side. 

The fingers of one hand dance at her hairline as he traces there, touching her more gently than he means. From his chest, she looks up at him and one soft cheek is red from rubbing against the coarse hair. 

"Maxson," the lie almost seems a kindness now, "Let me taste you." 

He inhales until his lungs are full to bursting. 

"Do it." A slave’s nod accompanies his words. "Do it." 

"Say it, Maxson." 

Not for the last time, he obeys. 

"Put my cock in your mouth," he whispers, "and suck it." 

It takes too long for her to kiss her way to her knees and Maxson can't keep his hand from himself, trying to ease the heat by fisting himself tight and pumping. When she takes his hand away, his erection twitches at the first hot breath that blows over him. 

He can feel the warmth all the way to his fingertips when she takes him, her lips stretching around and down and he has to lock his hands behind his head or he's going to have this conquering hero choking around him. Talbot pulls up, her tongue circling the head of his cock and then dives back until she can't take him further. 

"Fuck, _unh_...fuck." 

There are tears in his eyes from the desire and Maxson shuts them tight so she won't see how fucking weak he is, how outmatched he feels with each bob and suck. Drawing back, she takes a loud breath and if she means to exhale against his tip, Maxson doesn't know, but he calls her name and begs her not to stop. 

Begs. 

"Maxson," the name isn't fair because she’s got one hand wrapped around him and is palming his dick up and down and it is everything he can do to fight the tightening in his balls. "Look at me, Maxson." 

He does, damn him. 

Her other thumb has crept up beneath the base of his straining member and passes once over his sack and then again and his knees are going to buckle. 

"Talbot-" 

The rest of his plea for mercy is strangled as she takes the head of his cock between her lips and prods with her tongue at his slit. 

And then she stops. She pulls away to admire her work as the Brotherhood’s Elder shakes and shudders. Sweat has started to bead at his brow and between his shoulder blades and the loss of her turns it to ice. 

With each article of clothing that falls to the floor next, Maxson can't help but be left with the feeling that she's arming up, her exposed breasts and thighs as good as power armor. He watches, worships, chest heaving and breathing ragged with a cock that has gone purple and pulsing in need. 

It is too late for surrender; the white flag he should have waved is far beyond his reach now. She makes her charge against the breach slowly, one foot in front of the other, until her hands are at his chest and are driving him backward to the bed. There is no fight left in him as he falls back and braces himself against the cold steel wall. 

For the very first time, she _smiles_ at him and Maxson’s looking down the barrel of a loaded gun. 

"I'm going to ride you and you're going to say my name, Maxson, do you hear?" 

He nods in understanding. Can do nothing else as she settles above him. 

"Say my name, Maxson." 

"Talbot," he grunts, distracted by the glistening and swollen lips that are hovering just above his cock.  
Maxson isn't braced for the hand that descends in a flash between his legs and then wraps too firmly around the head of him and _squeezes_. He cries out, pitching forward into Talbot’s scarred shoulder and sitting his teeth against the joint to keep from alerting the whole ship to this losing battle. 

"Say _my_ name, Maxson." 

He doesn't dare use the one from before, the one she'd whispered to him that night. Instead, he chokes out a relenting breath and gives her what she demands. 

"Eulalia. Eulalia." 

He passes her test; he has no doubt that she would have abandoned him here had he not. Talbot engulfs him in a heartbeat. She sinks onto him and Maxson can't hold her close enough quickly enough. He wraps one arm around her waist and the other at back of her head and braces her against him, forces her down until she's gasping as his cock strikes too deep. 

"Shit, unh God, fuck! Talbot!" 

Her hips roll against him and her arching back forces him deeper still. 

In his ear, she hisses. "Christ, Maxson!" 

He's hurting her, his fingers press too hard and in apology, he snaps at her collarbone with animal teeth.  
The first tremor of her inner walls around him makes him throb and jerk and plead for her to slow down before he bursts. There's no finesse to how she fucks him or the way he bucks up to keep her from slipping from him. 

"Ah, fuck. Tal - I can't. I can’t hold on. _Goddamn it_." 

She snaps forward like a bowstring; he feels her nails at his scalp. 

"Say...my name." 

He does and she rewards him in kind, softly through a sob, and then the only thing he can feel is her trembling against him and the wet heat that locks down on his cock like a vice and rips from him a series of grunts that are barely human. 

He snatches her up and off of him with what strength he has left before jerking at his cock with his free hand. His cum splashes up between their bodies and he hears her gasp as the first load lands at her breasts. Another spurt and she whines her approval again and Maxson doesn't know what’s possessed him but he leans forward to lap it from her skin, clean her, even as his hand never stops working the desperate flesh between his straining thighs. 

Talbot weeps his name and he doesn't fight her as she lifts his head to kiss him. He tastes himself on her and it's bitter like he thought it would be, like it should be. 

He has no more to give. 

She has taken everything. 

With his head bowed under her chin, Maxson waits. He doesn’t dare move, won’t give up an inch more to the ax that is going to fall. 

The blade is gentle when it strikes. She lifts his head and with her mouth on his, she takes her time. Kisses and bites to his lips that are almost sweet. 

“You think you understand everything,” she looks down at him like he means something to her, “You don’t.” 

It is everything he can do not to look away, to hold her gaze and hope the mercy there now is honest. “You would’ve told them,” he says quietly, “All of them.” 

“Yes.” 

That much is the unrepentant truth. 

“I don’t have much, Maxson. I left that vault without the family it was supposed to save, and the _only_ thing I found that made that nightmare end was damned Recon Squad Gladius.” 

It is Talbot who looks away this time. “I never meant to be here, Arthur. But I am and damn it, it’s not for myself or your Brotherhood or for...Shaun. It’s just...I’m just here.” 

Her hair is tickling his shoulders and halfway down his back and as she speaks, Maxson dares to sweep it away, tucking it behind one ear only to have her lips at his again. Somehow, he turns away, hides his face. Because he doesn’t want to know if she’s lying to him. If it’s a ruse. But she hadn’t fucked him like a chore. She had called his name and held him close until it hadn’t seemed quite like fucking at all. 

“For him,” he says, “You’re here for him.” It’s hard to tell who’s lying now. 

But even with her heart inches from his, he can’t forget that this is Talbot, and she could all too easily end up the greatest threat the Brotherhood has known. Because nothing she says now in his arms will change the fact that hours earlier a single word more would have ended his legitimacy and with it the best chance the Commonwealth had at peace. 

“Maxson,” with his scowl hidden from her, she kisses his temple, his scar, “The demotion doesn’t make a damn to me. Just give me _time_.” 

“Time?” The Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel turns his face to hers. “You’ll have eight weeks _time_. Recon Squad Gladius’ Commander will keep you company.” 

The weight of her in his lap is gone suddenly, her body slipping from his as if a strong wind’s blown in. 

“Maxson -” 

He feels stronger on his feet, separate from her. Whatever’s necessary. Neutralize threats to the Brotherhood. And Maxson has never taken kindly to being threatened. 

“Arthur -” 

Let her house of cards fall around her. 

He takes up her jacket from the floor and places it in frozen hands, stares back at a beautiful, shattering face. 

“I told you before - just _go_ ,” From the sudden quaking that begins at her shoulders, the wound is deep. “Follow an order when it’s given, Initiate, or there’s no place for you here.” 


	17. Chapter 17

Vertibirds are a blessing and a curse. Too loud for conversation but too close quartered to ignore the way Paladin Danse’s back is to her. And he is _Paladin_ Danse, Talbot has been made more than aware. Her commanding officer and nothing more. He scans the Commonwealth below and not her face, assessing and silent. Every remark between them has been orders and orders alone. Suit up, get in, and don’t speak unless spoken to. 

She doesn’t blame him. 

A hard look in the mirror this morning had shown her with outside eyes _what_ looked back - she’s not convinced it’s who anymore - and had put her in his shoes. She’d found them hard to walk in. Ringed, red eyes had stared back at her, and still stare at the back of him now, as the bird banks and he grips the hand rail tighter just so he doesn’t have to risk tilting towards her. Fair enough. 

Secrets weigh more than trust and the scales have tipped. 

By the end of this, Talbot isn’t sure there will much left. If neither Danse nor Maxson can stomach her, there seems little reason keep up either the front or the fight and no reason at all to devote what remains to this cause of theirs. How easy it would be to run. She has buried one man, perhaps she can do the same to others. Put them behind her - let them forget what she’s done. 

Once upon a lifetime, there had been little else she hated more than a liar. What that says about her, Talbot won’t think too hard on. Because a never before known loathing is mounting in her belly and worming its way up her spine with cold, invasive fingers. Too late to apologize, she knows, she _knows_ it and it makes the claws of that hard truth dig deeper into her and start tearing into her insides and beating at her ribs for release. She’s not a woman often concerned with weakness or pride, has lost too much for that, but she’s not blind to the fact that those very things bleed from the Brotherhood. Danse and Maxson are not so different in that regard. 

So she swallows down every explanation and justification she has and stands with sackcloth and ashes in hand as it eats her from the inside out. 

It is the snap-crack voice of the pilot that finally forces her to look away. Cambridge lies below. Eight weeks of wasteland. Eight weeks with Danse. It’s what _she_ had wanted. Damn anyone else. Heartless in retrospect, but try as she might, she cannot manufacture any regret. Choices came with consequences and she has made hers. 

She follows Danse into the belly of the compound and when he calls for all present to fall in, she takes her place beside the other knights. While she’s able, she reminds herself. A demotion doesn’t concern her. Danse’s words do, however, as does the way he looks past her as he rambles orders and the mission brief. It stings but she will bear the lash because at least she’s still with him. 

By mealtime, the only thing successfully reestablished is Talbot’s icy but functional relationship with Scribe Haylen. Routes are plotted based on the scribe’s hunches and educated guesses and Talbot plugs coordinates in her pipboy without protest. 

It is a gruff voice from behind that plucks the wrong pebble from the carefully constructed facade and brings the whole wall tumbling down. 

“I see the ass-kissing didn’t pan out for you.” 

“Rhys,” Haylen must catch the way Talbot’s fingers freeze over the screen. Something is to be said for womanly intuition. 

What follows is honey and acid, the way her mother had once taught her. “I beg your pardon, Rhys?” 

“Just sayin’, Paladin Danse hasn’t so much as looked at our prodigal knight, here.” 

“If you haven’t got anything nice to say, Rhys, don’t say anything at all,” Talbot sets her jaw low and pins him with a sneer, “Healthier for you that way.” 

“You still talk big -” 

“And you should really see a doctor about that stick up your ass before I beat you with it. Tell me something,” this is child’s play in comparison to bowing up at the Elder, “Is it hard for you? Just manning the fort while the big kids get to play outside?” 

What tension has arisen is broken by two voices, one far more formidable than the other. Haylen’s goodwill is short lived but Talbot is more concerned by the other attention she has drawn. Danse has emerged from one of the back rooms and is glaring at her in a way she hasn’t seen since they had raided Arcjet all those months ago. 

Rhys is quick to apologize, biting off a well-trained “sorry, sir,” before leaving Talbot to face the brunt of the reprimand alone. 

The heat rising to her cheeks causes her temper to flare to bursting. 

“Christ, fine! I get it. Go stand in timeout. Going and gone!” 

She’s not proud of the slump of her shoulders as she drags herself from the room and up the stairs to the roof. She’ll be able to breath there. Calm and collect herself and figure out how the hell she’s going to make this work. 

Clouds hide most of the sky from view and one particularly dark blot far in the distance has Talbot scowling at the pipboy to see if it’s the Prydwen or some mocking shadow. Her breathing slows with a twinge of shame and she abandons the meager effort; better not to know. It’s hard to believe that hardly a week ago she had laid her husband in the ground and heaped dirt and earth over the still chilled body and wept like Judas when that grimy pall had finally hidden him - what was left of him - from view. It was supposed to be a beginning; the end of one story. Talbot’s of the opinion that the next installment has so far been underwhelming. 

Because there has been no freedom in goodbye. No, she’s made liars out of poets and songwriters. Looking out over what is left of Cambridge, at what she’s convinced is the Brotherhood Elder’s great, hulking taunt in the distance, Talbot has never hated these scarred badlands quite so fiercely. An impossible world to survive, one that has bred from the rape of ideals twisted understandings of morality and righteousness. She hates every last square inch of it. But maybe, and the thought occurs to her like a shot in the back, _maybe_ there is not so much difference between this ruined plain and the woman who had been rebirthed from the belly of it. 

“Knight!” 

She shuts her eyes and wishes that Danse hadn’t followed her up here. 

“Sir?” 

Has she ever called him sir before? Suddenly, it occurs to her that she hasn’t. But maybe it will make both their lives easier. Make it easier on him - a deeper line in the sand. 

“What are you doing?” His footsteps are just a man’s when they stop behind her, his power armor left behind in favor of being able to run her down more easily. 

What _is_ she doing? Damned if she knows. 

Talbot doesn’t answer quickly enough and the question comes again. “What are you _doing_ , Talbot?” 

Ah. Not a question of what then, but why. He’s taking the less offensive route, the way that hurts less and cushions the blow of the answer for both of them. 

Her admission is softly whispered. “I don’t know anymore.” 

“I stopped them,” Danse tells her and she wishes she were imagining the regret in his voice, “I shut them down when people said things weren’t right between you and Maxson, when they said you weren’t Brotherhood. I told them all that they were wrong.” 

Talbot recalls the night before, can still feel the lingering burn of Maxson’s words in her ears, and hates that she can’t hate him for it. If that had been hard, then this may kill her. Yesterday’s meeting had only been a ruse for her to turn back the covers of the bed she’s made. Danse will see that she lays in it. 

Even now though, he doesn’t lower himself to the baseness of injury. He has to know that he could gut her if he wanted, could have her on her knees and weeping for forgiveness. A better man than she could have ever hoped. Giving her the benefit of the doubt even with proof positive of her shortcomings. 

“Did he...was it your choice?” 

“Yes, Danse.” Talbot hopes the confession doesn’t twist the knife deeper. “It was always my choice.” 

Her hopes have stopped counting for anything, it would seem, because Danse’s rumbling baritone strikes out and it sounds like the snarl of a wounded bulldog. 

“You could’ve compromised _everything_. You didn’t just put yourself on the line, you put me there with you. My career, my good word, my -” 

“Your what, Danse? Your trust?” Talbot spins to face him and it’s just the two of them, them and that big ugly scar over their shoulders on all sides. “What would you have said if I’d told you I’d fucked your patron saint Maxson?” 

Any rebuttal is slapped out of him by the question. He looks like he might be as lost as she is, treading white water that’s threatening to pull them both under. 

Talbot rakes at her eyes to ease to the sting. “I...I didn’t want you know that I, that I was that _weak_. Anybody else. Anybody else but you.” Her chest is going to split open before she’s finished. “I thought you’d see why and...I don’t know why but that frightened me more than anything, Danse.” 

“You thought I’d see why?” One shaking hand scrapes through his hair before lashing out toward her. “How could I when you never said anything! We’re supposed to trust one another!” Danse has never been so animated, so uncomposed. The shame of provoking it causes her to shake where she stands. “I thought you were hurting, Talbot. I thought you couldn’t get past losing your family.” 

“I _couldn’t_!” No one has ripped such a scream from her since that damned .44 had been turned on Nate. “And that’s why I went to him! That’s why! I was losing my husband -” 

“He was already dead!” 

“ _Shut up_!” She’s on the paladin before she can think better of it, barely more than five feet tall and battering him as though she’s twice that. “Shut your goddamn, lying mouth!” 

Danse catches her shoulders, holding her back easily and rooting her to the spot, letting her hands strike and fall like damp match sticks against his him. 

He flinches only when she spits venom at him, “I wish I’d never met you! I should’ve kept walking that day at the square -” 

The paladin shakes her and she feels it rattle her down to her bones. “You don’t mean that, soldier.” 

“Don’t tell me what I mean, god damn you, Danse! And don’t call me soldier!” Talbot manages one more strike to his chest that makes him grunt. “I’m a...I’m a fucking lawyer!” 

“I guessed that much by your aim.” 

“No, you fucking didn’t!” she swipes at her nose with a bruised hand. “You can’t even spell lawyer, you, you...fuckin’ sardine can!” 

“Careful, lawyer. I’m still your superior.” 

There’s a small grin peeking out at her beneath the black scruff and Talbot can’t look too closely because Danse doesn’t smile unless he really means it and there are still tears to be cried. 

She looks away with bleary, repentant eyes. “You’re a great, big, damn walking modern art exhibit is what you are.” 

“You kiss your mother with that mouth, lawyer?” 

“Better Mama than your ass.” 

The next moment takes the anger from her, along with what breath had been in her lungs. It’s being pressed out of her by strong arms and a firm, warm chest housing a heart that’s beating too quickly. If she never moves again, it might be alright, because for a blissful minute, Talbot can believe that maybe Nate didn’t take home with him when he left. 

“I’m sorry, Danse.” The truth isn’t muffled by the press of her face to his heart. 

“Lionel,” he replies, “my name’s Lionel.” 

The next moment has her craning back to peer up at him. “Lionel? _Lionel_ Danse. Line-ol...Danse. Line dance. No, it’s fuckin’ not! Jimmy H. Christmas in June, how long have you been saving that one? Jesus, that’s the worst.” 

“Comedy’s not a Brotherhood specialty.” 

“It’s certainly not Not-Lionel Danse’s specialty.” 

With a suffering huff, Talbot begins to move away. Her paladin doesn’t let her. She’s still wrapped up with his arms around her. After that, who’s holding tighter isn’t clear; he won’t let her go because there’s still pain in her eyes and she swears he knows there’s no one left to fix it. 

“You’re the best they have, Danse,” Talbot smiles a weak smile and it coaxes one last tear from the corner of her eye. It’s wiped away by a gentle thumb before it ever reaches her cheek. “Don’t ever let them tell you otherwise.” 

“I’m just hoping you’ll follow by example.” 

“Only when folks are looking,” Talbot manages a smile because there’s a good damn precedent shining down at her. “Alright, bossman. I solemnly swear to play nice with the other children for the next eight weeks. Except Rhys.” 

“Talbot - “ 

“Danse -” 

There’s no escaping the frown. If she tries hard enough, she just might be able to learn to live with it though. 

“Fine, even Rhys. And I promise to make you privy to my every deep, dark secret and to not besmirch your stellar career or your stupid, pun-less name.” 

“ _Talbot_.” 

. 

………………………………… 

. 

The first night, it feels as though something is out of place. There’s a feeling in the air that chills his lungs and keeps his mind alert and expectant. It is _everywhere,_ this familiar newness. The command deck, the mess, his own quarters. Like a winter’s bluster is leaking in through cracks in the hull. It takes Maxson until the early hours to realize that it is something akin to respite. It is...invigoration. Anticipation. 

The air is clear for the first time in weeks and there is no soft-edged shadow to tease him from corners and doorways. 

He _rests_ and when he wakes, it is to a clear mind. He does not linger on thoughts of her - puts a soldier’s mind to fortifying the pieces she’s left. He will overcome. He must. 

When Kells presents to him the morning’s status report, Maxson bites off orders for the day with a tongue sharp like glass. Commanding. There remains so much to be done and Kells’ report only serves as a reminder that Maxson has been...unfocused. Surveying the land far below, the Elder directs the Lancer Captain point by point, his hands clasped behind his back as he stands tall and proud. 

Renewed. 

It is a ghost that slips up on him at noon, one with pale eyes like hers that spook him and make him curt and cold. Only a scribe, he realizes once he sees the unsuspecting fear in the young girl’s eyes as she passes off a file from Proctor Ingram with hands that snap back to her sides the moment they’re free. Maxson shakes himself from of the hold that had almost been gained on him and remarks half-heartedly some generic praise that earns him a relieved salute and a quick retreat. 

Perhaps a harder won battle than he first suspected, but it will be won regardless. It has to be because there are plans within his grasp at that very moment and there is yet so much that has to be done. A requisitions list the length of his arm, pages of notes and prospective timelines, and every last detail must be overseen. 

Maxson will do so personally. He will no longer wait idly by for results, half dazed by a scheming whore and wet dreams. If only to the walls around him, he swears then that he will not think again on those eyes and the torment they’d held that final night, or the truth he could and should have no interest in hearing. He _will_ forget the steel that he’d flogged against her bare skin with each bitter word. Won’t legitimize the regret that had started to peel him from the inside out when those full lips had parted in disbelief to beg _his_ name. 

Arthur Maxson swears it and the clean air starts to burn like cigarette smoke. 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably forewarn you that I’ve taken some liberties with the main quest...and things in general. Frankly, character dynamic is more important here and, as I have constantly been trying to paint this story with a slightly more realistic brush (shying away from the traditional “savior story” of Bethesda games), hopefully you won’t mind too much. This goes for not only the questline, but the interactions between characters as well. It’s my interpretation of how a situation such as this one might have played out if it wasn’t, well, a video game.

Liberty Prime is a worthy undertaking. 

Not for the first night, Maxson is up late, his head bowed low with Ingram, other proctors, and ranking officers. How many world leaders of the past had done this very same thing, he wonders, men like himself - diligent and sacrificing in their determination. Even if that sacrifice is something as insignificant as sleep. He feels older in the presence of these others, sees the bags under their eyes and the straining angle of their shoulders and wanders if he will someday be the same. Tireless, apparently, doesn’t mean one cannot be _tired_. 

He wants to close his eyes, to take a breath and bask in the progress. But there is no time for that. And he must set the example. If they aren’t expected to rest, he will not either. 

Late nights and early mornings, that’s what Liberty Prime has been so far. Crates upon crates of supplies that seem to double as the days go by, some flown in from the Capital Wasteland and others amassed in the field. Steel and rods and nuts and bolts...bare bones without meat or muscle. This is only the stretcher upon which they will revive Prime. 

“We’ve almost got the necessary materials for the scaffolding - believe me, that’s an undertaking in and of itself,” Proctor Ingram explains as the staff disperses for the night. Or morning, as a glance at the nearest clock reveals. 

“Problem is, it’s the finer things we’re lacking. Specific accouterments, Elder. We need our teams in the field to start tracking those things down or we’ll be looking at a bookshelf without any books.” 

“I understand, Proctor.” Maxson meets her eyes and there is confidence looking back at him, confidence in him and in this undertaking. “I’ve already assigned our more experienced field scribes to the effort.” 

“Yes, sir. But that’s not all -” 

“You’re concerned about locating the Institute.” Ingram is not the first to broach the issue. Maxson himself feels a few decades older for the time spent thinking on it. “Prime will take months, Proctor. We’ll have our way in by then.” 

“Understood, sir. Goodnight. Or maybe it’s good morning, who knows.” 

“Goodnight, Ingram. You can see to those requisitions when you’ve rested.” 

Rest, however, is not so easy for Maxson. Not as he reclines in the dim light of his quarters, alone and staring furiously at the document Quinlan had handed him upon the man’s departure. Maxson should have let it wait until morning, should have slept while he could. 

Because a single name is glaring back at him as his fingers twitch and scrape at the page. 

“ _Eulalia Talbot, previously contained within Vault Tec facility 111, expressed briefly upon her recruitment previous dealings with an unknown Institute mercenary...Knight Talbot’s total knowledge of the organization has yet to be fully established in confidence_ .” 

Maxson tosses Quinlan’s dossier away. The pages can be picked up tomorrow, for now he lets them scatter and shields his eyes as they flutter to the floor. None of it is unknown to him. Once, he had nearly memorized every scarce fact there was to know about her, had clung to each one greedily and constructed a picture in his mind - a false one, it turned out, an invention of his own. 

Talbot was gone; for five more weeks, she would be out of his reach. Somewhere lost in the Commonwealth where he could neither question nor confront her. But mercenaries were just guns for hire and what little she probably revealed would, under any other circumstance, not be worth the headache. Duty, however, demanded that Maxson not let even the slightest opportunity pass. Every leaf overturned, every dark corner of Boston and beyond searched. 

In the sanctity of his room, Maxson lets his fingers work at the throbbing space between his brows and wonders if she will lie to his face once more when the time comes. Eight weeks in the Commonwealth to hate him, fifty-six days to plot new torments for him. Perhaps…they may not be entirely undeserved. 

It is rare now to hear echoes of his name floating in through the vents when he is alone. Blasphemes his own imagination conjures up. Whispers to accuse him of wrongdoing and, worse yet, the occasional wrenching guilt. He had ground his boot heel into her throat when she was down, had leapt at the single gap in her armor he’d finally found and _cut_ her, her lies indistinguishable from her truths and he unwilling to play their game further. A soft body and benumbed heart was not worth it. 

That she possesses knowledge of their enemy is an inconvenience and nothing more, not an intertwining of fate or punishment for mutual misdeeds. Truth is required. If not for him, for ‘his Brotherhood,’ she’d called it, then perhaps for the one soldier she loves so dearly. 

Maxson stands. Thinking. He needs to think. 

It seems ironic that Danse should be the answer, the pawn in a new game, and Maxson the potential puppet master. For all his susceptibility to a spread snatch, the man is still a loyal soldier. Devout, even. Beyond bullets and power armor, he may yet have a use in manipulating Talbot. 

It seems more a blood sport, this new idea. 

Tomorrow, Maxson decides, tomorrow he will consider it. How best to acquire information from the likes of Eulalia Talbot. Coax it or bleed it from her. For all her damnable swagger, he cannot imagine that she has considered he would again kick her while she is down, while she was beaten, for the time being. 

He is not certain she can survive a second round. 

He’s not certain that he could either. 

Tomorrow. He will decide tomorrow. 

. 

………………….. 

. 

Their orders are to retrieve circuit boards and scanners and God knows what else because Talbot stops listening around the fifteen-minute mark of Haylen’s jabbering. Locations have been marked and coordinates sent and if there’s much else to do outside of keeping them all from getting shot, Talbot is not the woman for the job. Hour after hour, she plays the soldier and only when Danse graces her with a word or three does she bother to pretend she’s not bored to literal tears. 

It is the evenings that she yearns for, when it is too dark to walk further and they have all settled in for the night. They sleep in shifts and they do so soundly and Talbot does not waste an opportunity to whisper to her paladin as the others lay snoring. During those nights is the first time she speaks of where she comes from, of her life before Boston, and she grins sadly when Danse murmurs his confusion at the religion of biscuits and what constituted the perfect glass of tea. She answers him when one night he asks about her family history and marvels at her knowledge of genealogy. Tales of spilling cola over imported lace tablecloths and wreaking havoc among the prized azaleas of her childhood home. Her paladin _smiles_ and she beams back each night even as she can’t decide if her heart is breaking for what is gone or stitching itself back together again with every story Danse draws from her. 

She tells him of meeting Nate. Wipes at the tears welling up in her eyes as she chuckles about how the wayward soldier had stumbled drunkenly around the corner and spilled what was left of his beer down the front of her Easter Sunday dress. And as she repeats what her mother had said to poor Nathaniel Talbot that day, Danse outright laughs at the drawl the memory has her mimicking. 

“Oh, I just hated him, Danse,” she laughs and leans closer as somewhere across camp, a soldier shifts in his sleep, “I hated him more than I’d ever hated anybody in my life. And he just took it from Mother, grinning and bearing it, and me hating him all the more. Nate finally looked at me, those blue eyes going in different directions, and he said, ‘I’m sorry, miss, but I’m on shore leave and I don’t have a _damn_ clue what this broad’s saying right now. But if you’ll meet me for dinner tonight, I promise to apologize _profusely_.’ And he just stumbled off, Danse. I guess he caught himself though, ‘cause he turned back around and yelled where and when. I don’t think I forgave him for the dress until about the fourth or fifth letter he sent me. Fast forward a few years and we eloped on my twenty-fourth birthday. I can still hear Daddy shouting about how ‘ _no self-respecting Beaujardin child of his was goin’ t’ run off with some damn Massachusetts snowbird!_ ’ He came to the wedding though, so...” 

Just like every other night, when her voice and thoughts trail off, Danse rolls onto his back and closes his eyes and when she wakes him for his watch, the smile he’d gone to sleep with is still hanging on his lips. 

What tight spots they find themselves in end without fail in the smell of scorched flesh and ammo checks. Back to back, side by side. Talbot remembers and she recounts and she thinks that each tomorrow is a little less daunting than the last. 

By the time they’ve reached Quincy, half of the days have dragged past and Talbot swears there haven’t been enough nights. It is a pleasant purgatory - someplace between heaven and hell. Even so, if she is in purgatory, then she already knows where she’s bound when this is over. The thought makes her fists clench and unthinking, she reaches for her canteen. Warm water splashes down the back of her throat and it tastes of sulfur. 

She drinks it down greedily all the same and hides a glance at her paladin behind black sunglasses and knows every moment is worth what will come after. 

………………….. 

A long damn time coming. He’d thought she was half dead when she’d left the last time. Just knew he’d be dragging her back in a sheet before she ever made it out of the city. 

Talbot listens to each blustery statement and shakes her head at the bravado before she threatens to walk her pert ass right back out of the gate she’d just come through. 

John Hancock shuts his mouth and offers her an orange mentat. 

“Missed you, too, John,” she tells him with a wink and a slight of hand to tuck away the chems, forgotten. 

“Brotherhood still dry humpin’ your thigh? Or did you tell them to step off like ol’ Hancock told you?” 

Talbot snorts and for the next hour, she trembles in her chair with delight. Only a fraction of that time is spent on business because Hancock understands there are better times to be had. It is more fun than she’s had in months. 

Business is business though and while the two of them are friends, Brotherhood soldiers are bad for it in Goodneighbor. 

“How many we talkin’, Teacup?” 

“I can swing just two from my crew. The rest...I don’t know, John. All I’ve been told is they’re coming in from the Prydwen and hell if I know who wants to get their boots that dirty.” 

“Hey!” Hancock knocks his knee against hers, “We like it dirty around here, ya feel me?” 

Talbot says she does and after another half hour of negotiating and raunch, they’ve got an agreement. 

“Be glad I like you, little sister. I wouldn’t open these doors to the Brotherhood of Steel for just anybody.” 

He’s not wrong. Talbot tells Danse as much when she finds him and the others hunkered down outside the gate. 

“Just me and you,” she explains. “We go in first and when the second team gets here, they meet with Hancock in person. Dick measuring contest, if I had to guess. Maybe literally, knowing John.” 

“Talbot -” 

There’s a heavy, armored hand gripping her elbow and she gets the message. She slips further from the group with Danse right behind her. 

“While you were gone, Haylen received confirmation of who will be arriving.” 

If the phrasing didn’t confirm it, the look in Danse’s eyes does. 

The new information doesn’t feel much different from the laser burn she’d taken a month ago. It hits her before she’s got a chance to process it and there’s a fear threatening to scramble her belly if she doesn’t get herself together. 

There’s no need to ask how long Danse has known. It can't have been long; he'd have pulled her from the path of fire the moment he'd found out. 

Talbot knows a play when she sees one. She’d been schooled in some of the best courtrooms in the Northeast. 

Eight weeks, they were supposed to have. It’s only half over. Eight weeks’ worth of evenings spent regaling a man who looks at her like she’s worth something and days that remind of her those she’d spend waiting for Nate to come home. 

For the first time since her initial encounter with the Brotherhood’s Elder, she is at a loss to how to proceed. Just her and Danse. No ship full of leverage. There is nothing left of Nate in the man she is about to confront. Only critical cobalt eyes that don't remind of her home or heartache, strong shoulders that threaten to crush her, and a fierceness she can no longer keep at bay. Just Arthur Maxson with his righteous resentment. 

Talbot takes one breath and then another. 

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” she murmurs and the quote catches and stutters on her tongue, “Once more.” 

A scowl carves Danse's face and Talbot only wonders of he too feels the building uneasiness crackling the air like a rad-storm, or if the devil is coming for her soul alone. 


	19. Chapter 19

It has been too long since Maxson's had boots on the ground. The leather does not stay clean for long, not as the Commonwealth filth clings to his soles and reeks in his nostrils and he’s not certain there is enough water on all the Prydwen to wash the stench away. Three plainclothes knights flank him. They are not the first team here. Not even the second. Simply the most visible. A show of force while another has worked from the shadows for the last week. Puppet strings manipulated by a tactician’s fingers. Even scum like that which inhabits this rank plot of land cannot be stupid enough not to see that these new men are more than malnourished scavvers. They do not bear their insignias but Maxson has chosen carefully, and there is power and dominance in each face among them. 

Goodneighbor. 

He's heard reports of the place, a festering shelter for outcasts and wretches. It appears a fitting home, dark with creaking overhangs and shadowed corners where the worthless may retreat to their suffering. When he had assured Ingram that he would search for answers to the outstanding problem at hand, he had not expected it to lead him to a place such as this. Further information from Quinlan had supplied that Talbot’s last contact regarding the Institute dead ended here with a kook scientist. 

It had been coincidence that placed Talbot in the vicinity and a few vague orders radioed to Gladius’ scribes had cemented the plot. Word was that she had contacts here - _acquaintances_ is the word used by Quinlan – and further inquiry from scouts suggested it best to make contact before breaching the barbed wire and clapboard walls. To Maxson, it seems too much like asking permission rather than forgiveness and he is not fond of either prospect. 

He could have waited four more weeks. But she was unsuspecting, removed now from the inner workings of the Prydwen. The proverbial iron had yet to cool and Maxson is still healing from the scalding grease she’d last splashed in his face. An eye for an eye, a favor for a favor. An advantage gained from a loss. 

This seems a strange place for her to have once taken shelter. Glittering through the rust as she does, a relic from days of rouge and lacquered nails, such a place seems on its surface an affront to her pretentious sensibilities. But as Maxson scowls again into the shadows and sees how many and how deep they are, he knows that perhaps she does belong here. There are undoubtedly many like-minded individuals with whom she might commune. The thought leaves Maxson wary and he presses his gun nearer his hip. 

Mayor Hancock is who the relay from Gladius had named. A pissant thug seeking to mark his territory. It is a small price to pay for the information at stake. 

The show of dominance goes as expected; the mayor has seen fit not to be present in the slum he calls an office and a machine gun-wielding ghoul half a Geiger tick from feral tells the Elder as much with a patronizing tip of his fedora and a jeer. The Third Rail, he’s then told, back room. 

He knows the place when he sees it because Paladin Danse is lurking just beyond the entrance, hands stuffed into the pockets of ill-fitting jeans and if he weren't glaring so spitefully as Maxson rounds the corner, the younger man might venture to say the paladin looks outright nervous. 

“Elder.” 

“Paladin.” 

It is left at that. 

The so-called mayor waits inside - there's no need for Danse to waste his breath on the obvious. But Maxson can feel the flesh of his neck rising as he descends into the bowels with the other at his back. Danse is either incapable or unconcerned with disguising his misplaced judgment of his superior. It sparks against Maxson and makes his spine arch and his shoulders stiffen. Yet, when the man is ordered to take a position near one corner at the base of the stairs, Danse does so without comment or question. Obedient when it counts. 

Talbot, for her part, flashes white-hot like a shooting star in the dimness.  
  
She looks...well. Maxson’s mind sluggishly supplies the word, even as to his eyes it falls short. Wandering the Commonwealth is kinder to her than any other he's seen. There is no raggedness, nothing haggard and road-weary. Standing straight with her head thrown back and laughing with a man in a red frock coat who is leaned over the bar, pilfering whiskey and not couth enough for glasses. She is not like the others here, drinking memories away to the magnetism of jazz. 

Her hair shines a shade fairer and skin more honey than milk for the time under the sun. Whatever torment had ridden her so violently has been shaken off and a younger, stronger woman stands before him now, out of his reach, out of her sight. 

A closer look reveals that it is not a man she's with, but a ghoul, black-eyed and lipless. He looks like a shambling corpse beside her but it is Talbot who follows him, at his heels down a dim red stretch of hallway to a back room. Later, Maxson might be tempted to find her, if only for a closer look, to see if she is some mirage dreamed to set his mind at ease. Or he may wait – restrain his curiosity until he can put off her part in this business no longer. 

But first, John Hancock. 

John Hancock, Mayor of Goodneighbor, and frock-coated ghoul, according to the robot behind the bar. 

It would appear that Talbot has friends in low places. 

Maxson ignores the pang of surprise. 

"Oi! You start trouble an' Ol' Mayor Hancock'll gut ye before Ham evah has a chance t' throw ya out!" 

The warning is met with a glare that encourages the robot to go back to polishing its tumblers. 

Talbot’s feet are kicked up over the ghoul's knees, toes bouncing daintily to the beat of the song. One pitted and scarred hand rests on her ankle and another is tipping back the filched bottle. It is the ghoul who sees him before she does and Maxson meets the black stare with one of menacing blue. 

"Well, well, Teacup...looks like your friends decided to show." 

_Teacup_ jerks her feet down and Maxson is positive he can feel the slam of them reverberate through the floor. It is a graceless and revealing reaction. Wide-eyed like a pre-war doe and then...then schooled a single moment later, veiled behind a thin sheet of glass she throws up in the span of a breath. She meets his eyes and what he finds peering back at him nearly turns the stalwart resolution he has developed on its head. 

She watches and is watched. 

Her greeting is quiet. Demure, if he's charitable. "Elder Maxson," the bite is gone. It is merely hello. 

"Initiate." 

The title earns him nothing. Not the faintest twitch. Not so much as a blink. 

" _Initiate_ Teacup? Ain't that some shit?" The mayor sees fit to stand and he is slender and lithe and serrated like a Raider's knife. "You gonna introduce me to my new friend, little sister?" 

"John," it is a first name basis _with a ghoul_ that causes Maxson’s eyes to narrow, "Arthur Maxson, Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel." 

It makes his skin prick, the way his name passes her lips. When she turns to him, he can't tell if she has moved the first rook of this new match to black or red. War or...peace. Perhaps it is simply the calm before the storm. He will watch and wait. 

"Elder Maxson, meet Mayor John Hancock." 

Hands are not extended by either of them. 

“Never thought I'd see the Brotherhood knockin’ on my door.” 

Maxson doesn't bother to contain his snort. “Desperate times, desperate measures it would seem.” 

“Hunh, desperate somethin’.” 

From the corner of his eye, Maxson sees Talbot shift, the same telling wriggle he's watched a dozen times before. 

“You here for a reason, boy, or you just want me to hook your fellas up with some chems? Give ‘em an _edge_ in this rodeo.” There is a roll of slim shoulders and Maxson wonders if the ghoul acquired it from Talbot or the other way around because it’s identical, a finessed middle finger. Or maybe they're simply kindred spirits. 

“This is a courtesy, Mr. Hancock, nothing more. My men and I have business with one of your...residents.” 

“Hey,” Talbot’s eyes spring a fraction wider and it's in damn admiration of all things as the ghoul moves chest to chest with Maxson, “You don't touch my people. _Any_ of my people.” 

The way his withered body has moved to shield the woman just slightly makes the real threat perfectly clear. 

“As I said, _Mayor_ , this is a courtesy. The Brotherhood of Steel doesn’t ask permission.” 

“Sheesh, Teacup, how do you stand this asshole? He makes that Danse guy look like fun at parties.” 

Talbot blushes down to her neck and the pink of it makes her eyes shine like gemstones. 

“Oh, he's not so bad, John,” a timid grin cracks the façade, “Only when he wants to be.” 

The words ring true enough, even as they hang like a bouquet of grenades in the air. It takes Maxson a moment to recover. 

“I trust we're done here?” 

There is nothing else to say - no more to reveal to the ghoul and still more to be kept from the woman with the new-penny eyes. 

“Jesus, I hope so. So long as you don't cause trouble, I'll let you slide, feel me? But you kick up shit an’ Goodneighbor’ll bury you in it.” 

Maxson turns his back on the skinless cretin without further acknowledgment and notices that only the knights have moved to follow him. 

“Initiate Talbot,” this time her face twists and she can’t hide it, “fall in.” 

It's there in the way her chin tilts and her shoulder pull back, the defiance that is as much a part of her as blood and lies. But a single glance at the knights beside him has her trailing along with heavy-footed steps. She will not embarrass him in front of them. Only Danse has that honor. 

“I sure hope you know what you're doin’, Teacup.” 

The mayor's words follow them down the hall and if she responds at all, Maxson does not care. 

He slows his steps but stays just ahead of her. She will learn her place. 

“I see you're well respected as always,” her eyes meet his and when she can't find the sneer in either his voice or his face, she seems content to listen, “Teacup is a formidable pet name.” 

“Not a pet name,” her voice is breezy, “Elder, just the second one on my birth certificate.” 

The sheer absurdity of the admission almost stops him. This civility seems almost an affront, some joke being played and neither of them is sure who's laughing. If she cares even remotely that he is addressing her so casually, she shows it only in her refusal to meet his eyes. It is as fine a front as he has seen her muster, not a single glance out of place or a girlish tell-all. She keeps step like a subordinate, not a woman he’d licked clean of his own cum. 

“Eulalia _Teacup_?” His voice is low, mocking even by his own standards, and from the dark corner across the room, he can see Danse move a step forward as if he expects to listen. 

“Eulalia Teacup Beaujardin, once upon a time...” She looks to that corner and the paladin guarding it. “Not that it matters now.” 

“No,” Maxson bites, “It doesn’t.” 

Not unlike the ghoul, Danse is predictably quick to buffer his protégé once they come to a stop. How quaint. Even humorous, if the displeased nudge to Danse's hip is taken into account. But it indicates informality more than anything, a familiarity that makes Maxson's tone more reproachful than is perhaps subtle. 

“You're both to accompany me to the Hotel Rexford. There's...a matter to discuss.” 

“My team in the field, Elder?” 

“Will stay in the field, Paladin.” 

“Understood, sir.” 

“What? No after dinner drinks?” Talbot heaves a dramatic breath and she smells like whiskey and woman and it’s the same cursed scent that had once ghosted up his chest and over his lips… 

“I’m just crushed.” One delicate hand touches at her chest, tracing for the briefest moments at the juncture between her breasts. For his benefit or Danse’s or genuine inattention, Maxson can’t decide. “We following you, sir?” 

Yet there’s a look in her eyes he never anticipated as she meets and holds his narrowed stare. One devoid of spite or ill intent. Dazzling under the lighting…and accepting. 

Unsuspecting, Maxson realizes, her gun no longer pointed at his knee caps to cripple him. What haunches had risen so fleetingly have since eased as she appears to settle into what is almost respectful compliance. Content with his cold shoulder and as unwilling as he had once been to fight further. Her deference, however colorful, removes the paladin at her side from the balls of his feet and seems to brush away the severity in his eyes like a calm breeze. 

_It’s okay_ , she says as much to Danse with only her posture and twitching lips, _I’m okay_. But she is looking at _him_ and Maxson comprehends all at once that the hate he has imagined she holds for him is a fading chimera of his own invention. 

She has no idea what is coming next. With eyes like those, she’s expecting questions and has readied her answers. 

Maxson swallows the broken glass that materializes without warning in his throat. This is not the monster he has been preparing himself to slaughter. She is a lamb, contrite and healing and _willing_ to play by his rules. His approaching reckoning with her nips now like a wolf at his heels. Because it will be brutal and as he gazes back into those keen, thoughtful eyes, he feels as though a gun has gone off in his hands and the echo is rippling through his veins. 

An unwitting sacrifice and it is already much too late to wash the blood from his hands. 


	20. Chapter 20

Her entreaties haunt Maxson into the night. 

Broken and sobbing and begging for a dead killer to please, please take her instead. 

Shattering cries ripped from her memory and shrieked through lips stretched so wide they had split and leaked with red. 

He had forced her to watch her husband murdered at point blank range all over again. 

It seems akin to rape now, as he hides in the darkness of his quarters, wiping his palms against his pants as though it could clean them. The information in his lap, so neatly transcribed, is tainted and corrosive to the touch. A lesson. 

The price of this war with her is his humanity. 

. 

…………………. 

. 

Maxson _remembers_. 

None in the room had had much to say as Talbot had stepped shakily up to the innocuous-looking machine. Every step she’d taken as she’d been escorted from the hotel had looked more and more like a death march. Faced with the inevitable, she’d looked once over her shoulder for the face of the soldier who had asked this of her, who had convinced her even as she’d asserted she would rather die first. 

Anything, anything but this, she had said. She would tell them anything and everything they could ever want to hear. But, please, not this. 

It had required Danse taking her to a separate room and when the pair had returned, she had agreed, head low and gallows in her eyes. 

Neither Danse nor Maxson himself could have understood what they’d done. Not then. It was to be for the greater good, even Danse had agreed once Maxson had explained what was necessary. 

_Necessary_ . 

Once before, as she’d tried to explain, before she had been taken under their wings, she had attempted this feat. Had walked through those same aging doors and talked with the same brilliant doctor with the same free-thinking synth at her side. Only then it had been of all their own free wills. 

She had not been able to go through with it, as Maxson would come to know. Confronted with the possibility of watching the mercenary’s memories play back in her own mind, through her own eyes, it had been too much, she'd told them, and she too unwilling. Couldn’t watch her Nate die again, would not dare to look down the crosshairs of that bull barrel as if she were the one pulling the trigger. 

Not then. Not even for her boy. 

But she would for Danse. 

And Danse would ask it of her in duty’s name. 

The synthetic P.I. had been snatched from Diamond City three days before Maxson had ever reached Goodneighbor; he’d ordered it himself, having seen the name mentioned in passing in one of Talbot’s files. The machine and Talbot were not friendly, but even it had seemed to understand what they had not, had looked on with oddly conflicted eyes and cursed the Brotherhood to their faces. 

It had seen things they did not know. Had known her _before_. 

Both the synth and the doctor had nearly needed to be forced at gunpoint. Talbot had only further complied with the assurance both would be left free and unharmed. 

Hell had broken loose within the hour. 

Maxson _remembers_ it all and for the first time in his life, he laments the price of war. 

He had been the one to finally to pull a writhing and incoherent Talbot from the memory machine; his battlecoat will always bear the marks of her nails from where she had clawed at him, uncaring in those awful moments of who held her, and clinging to him tighter until her nailbeds were bloody. 

He can still hear the scuffing of heavy boots behind him as a horrified Danse had followed them down the hall...still felt the echo from the crack of skin against skin as Talbot had struck the shame-faced man with the back of her shaking hand. It’s no stretch of the imagination to guess that somewhere, Danse is still sporting that bloodied lip like a scarlet letter. 

_“I told you! Damn you, damn you all! I told you, I told you and you didn’t listen. No, oh, God! I shouldn’t have listened...”_

Hours later now, and the fragmented weeping is still tolling in his ears. 

Screams in between full-body sobs and gasps for breath she couldn't catch and the frantic sweeping of her hands over her contorted face. As though she had been trying to wipe away blood splatter that had never been there. 

_“Nate...oh, God, oh, God no...no. Shaun! My baby...I left him. Oh, God, oh, no…”_

When the trembling had eventually made speech impossible, a merciful injection of something from Dr. Amari had quieted her. 

She sleeps now, just down the hall under Knight Captain Cade’s watchful eye. 

Under Maxson’s as well, it turns out. There’s no respite to be had, not tonight. The lights of the main deck are dim and the Prydwen rocks in a restless sleep. The low yellow glow of overhead lights reflects against the top of Cade’s balding head and Maxson interrupts the medical officer’s late night self-mutterings with a cough from the doorway. 

“Elder, sir.” 

Cade moves to stand but Maxson waves him down. 

“Any changes, Knight Captain?” 

“Her breathing and heart rate are stable. Circulatory system is functioning normally,” Cade replies and both men look to the woman stretched over the nearest bed. “The physicality of the acute stress she’s endured, she’ll recover from, of course. Can’t say as much for the mental trauma just yet.” 

All Maxson hears is the medical equivalent of “I hope it was worth it, sir.” 

“How long will she be sedated?” 

“No way to be sure without knowing what the doctor from Goodneighbor gave her. Could be hours, could be a day or two. If she remains _agitated_ , I may have to issue a second dose of my own sedative -” 

“No,” Maxson’s voice is firm, “No, not unless you have no choice.” 

We’ve done enough, he wants to add. 

“Affirmative, Elder.” 

Talbot’s hands have been bandaged, the blood cleaned away. Cade sees him looking and quietly says, “She must have been hysterical. Half her nails are torn out.” 

“It wasn't her fault.” 

It wasn't her choice, is what he means, it was his. He may as well have taken pliers to her fingers himself. 

In the Memory Den, buckling within his arms, she had looked back at him through wild, dilated eyes and when she’d touched his face, Maxson had felt her heart rate stuttering erratically against his own skin. Speeding away only to slow to nearly a stop. Over and over until he hadn’t understood how the organ didn’t give out. “ _I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry_ ,” she had repined just once and then she had not looked into the blue of his eyes again. 

For the next three hours, Cade makes no mention of Maxson’s presence. At first, it is the twitching of Talbot’s left foot that draws the Elder’s attention. The same rhythmic bouncing he had witnessed from her at the bar in slums of Goodneighbor. The beat she follows now is one he cannot hear and he calls to the medical officer who is at the woman’s side in an instant, his practiced hands checking her pulse. 

“She’s waking up -” 

“Leave us.” 

“Sir -” 

“I will alert you if you’re needed, Knight Captain. Go find yourself some caffeine.” 

Cade is gone when Talbot’s eyes first crack open and she glares groggily at the lights above. 

Her voice is hoarse and it occurs to Maxson that maybe he should have thought to get water but he can’t bring himself to move, doesn’t want her to know he’s there until the last possible moment. Afraid of the inevitable reaction. 

“The Prydwen…” 

Coherent, then. Her eyes are red-rimmed and angry-looking from the capillaries that have burst all around her features. 

“W-where’s Danse?” 

She hasn’t looked at him, but she knows it’s him all the same. He feels it. Can see it in the way she’s holding herself taunt. Maxson wonders how - if she can smell fear and blood like a predator. 

He has to respond. “Paladin Danse returned to Squad Gladius late yesterday.” 

The hand she raises to rub at her cracked lips is lowered with a wince, her fingers flexing as she examines the damage. 

“You...broke our deal.” Now, she looks, she pins him, and Maxson offers no defense. “We had a deal.” 

He breaks under the pressure of her. “Yes.” 

Her face twists to the shadows. 

“You meant to break _me_...” 

Break her? Looking at her now, awake and speaking, only hours after she had descended into what he can only describe as psychosis or shock or...something medical he has no name for, Maxson can’t say for certain that she can be broken. 

But he has to speak. He has to say something. She has earned that much, earned what truth he can tell her. 

“No,” he says and he swallows hard because his voice is nearly weaker than hers, “I only meant to hurt you.” 

Small hands wring her biceps like a wet towel. She means to ward off the shaking, even if it ends in bruises and broken skin. 

“For your Brotherhood? Because I deserved it?” 

She’s stating it like it should be gospel to him; the shame draws his eyes away from hers and it’s a daunting undertaking just to grind out her name. “Talbot -” 

“No, no... _you_ don’t justify it. Just...don’t, Elder.” He hears her jaw crack and knows she’s struggling as hard as he to find words, any words to address what has happened, what has been done to her. 

“I want to sit up.” 

Those are not the words he is expecting. 

Thirty seconds later see his scored coat balled in his hands and placed at the head of the medical cot. Her body can’t seem to keep up with her thoughts, however, and he watches as her muscles spasm and strain before her arms collapse limply against the thin mattress. 

“ _Help me_.” 

Later, Maxson will chalk up another tally to the list of commands she has given him. He doesn’t mind obeying this one. 

“What’d...what’d you drug me with?” The words are whispered into his ear, accusing, and his hands fumble in their attempt to slide beneath her arms and hoist her up. Her breath feels steady against his neck. In and out. Not like it had been. 

“Dr. Amari,” he clarifies as he situates her, stepping out of the line of fire as quickly as he is able. “I did not ask what it was.” 

“And Danse? Is he alright?” 

“Your paladin is…” Anguish is the only word Maxson knows that might accurately describe the look that had been on the man’s face. “He’s undoubtedly concerned about you.” 

The snort that follows is meant for him and his own inability to not speak plainly to her and not remotely to scoff at the paladin’s current state of mind. 

When nothing else is said, Maxson calls for Cade. Talbot sees fit not to listen to a word from the medic; she is preoccupied with staring Maxson into submission, has him backed into a corner with nowhere to go that won’t seem a retreat. She dares him to take flight from her now, to run before he has answered for his transgressions. Not this time, those bruised eyes glimmer, not this time. 

And so Maxson stays. Can’t do a damn thing else until Cade dismisses himself and they are alone again. 

“Was it worth it?” 

Maxson fights the urge to duck from the loaded gun she has pointed at his head with the question. 

He could lie. 

But if he does, he can feel in his bones that she will pull the trigger and there will be nothing left of anything between them. 

“Yes.” 

He passes her test. Her chin dips once in acknowledgement and then she seems to forget him once more. For five long minutes, he waits. He stands and he dares not move a single muscle lest that executioner’s gaze bring the ax against him once more. 

“Did you know…” she does not meet his eyes this time, “when I killed Kellogg, that mercenary, I didn’t just...he was beaten. Shot all to pieces. Brutalized...but still breathing. I don’t know if it was the cybernetics or...what, but he wasn’t quite dead. I started at his feet, poured a bottle of whiskey over him. He was a cigar smoker, you see, San Francisco Sunlights, and he kept, kept this old lighter in his pocket.” She presses a finger against one of the bare nailbeds and sucks in a breath against the pain. “I set him on fire, Maxson. I watched him burn and when he _finally_ screamed...I felt like I had done something. Something worthwhile. Like it was all almost worth it just to see him hurt.” 

She’s not finished yet and Maxson is grateful because in the face of what he’s done, what can he say that can distinguish him from the dog she had put down? The same coin, different sides. Bile rises in his throat and he wishes he wore his coat so that she cannot see his hands curl in on themselves. 

“I feel like I should hate you,” the ax gleams high in the air now. It would be the merciful thing to bare his neck to her. 

“But this world, Maxson. Your world. It’s changed _people_. You’re a different breed. And you...all you know is hate and fear and _war_. And, and...I want to blame you for it. I wanna blame you all.” 

She shuts her eyes tight and hides her face in her shoulder. “I don’t want to be like _you_. Hurting people before they can hurt me. But it’d just be like hating a shark for hunting seals, wouldn’t it?” 

“Talbot -” 

“It’s not fair! None of it’s fair! You’re...you’re twenty-one? Twenty-two? You shouldn’t be like this. Shouldn’t have to be. You should be thinking about women and fast cars and... everything shouldn’t be a goddamn battle.” 

She must hear the creak of his first step against the floor, as she rakes her swollen eyes up to his. They are bleary and dark but if he looks closely enough, Maxson can still make out the shadows of the world before it had ended. He’s the Elder of the Brotherhood, he tells himself, but that doesn’t make him feel any less encroaching as he slips slowly into the chair nearest the bedside. 

“I can set Ingram to work on a time machine,” he leans nearer to the cot and mercifully she does not move away, “if it would make you happy.” 

“Don’t say that. You... _people_ tell shit jokes.” Her lips press thin and one rough crack splits deeper into the meat. “Don’t say that and look like you mean it.” 

“It would have to be after her current project, of course -” 

“Elder,” she frowns and she was being truthful about the hate. There is none to be found as she looks across at him. 

“Will you stay?” He must ask, has to make it clear. He knew from the moment they’d pried open that machine that he had to ask. “You may go, if you wish. I will allow it, Talbot.” 

“ _Stop_. You’re not Maxson. Where’s Maxson?” For a moment, she almost has him convinced that she means it, before a telling twitch at the corner of her mouth reveals the truth. A sad smile, one not for him, but for herself. The only trace of self-pity he’s seen from her. “Where can I go? Diamond City? See what they’ve done to Fenway Park? Build a little house on the Commonwealth prairie? No…” 

“It would appear that you have friends in Goodneighbor.” 

“Small doses,” she laughs after a beat, “’Small doses’ because...you know, chems and…” 

Puns have decreased in popularity over the last two centuries and Maxson can only shake his head. 

“I’ll stay if you will,” she finally murmurs. “For just tonight. Please, don’t run. Don’t retreat or wave a white flag or, whatever. Just...for a little while.” 

It is a second chance he does not deserve. Once again she makes him feel unworthy, but this time, Maxson doesn’t have the fight left in him to hold it against her. 

“I think I owe you that much -” 

“No! No, goddamn it! Just...just go then!” The outburst has him pulling back. “Fucking always trying to stay square. What is it with you people? Barely even human anymore, barely...barely...people stay at sickbeds, Maxson. They buy stale chips and drink bad coffee and look at the walls but...they _stay_. We stay. It’s basic human etiquette 101. You don’t let people suffer alone. There’s… there’s requisite green jello and _you_ have to eat it because I’m the one in the bed, I get to dodge that bullet. And…” Talbot’s head falls to his bundled coat in defeat he’s never seen from her. “Know what, you don’t have to stay. Go fight your war.” 

He doesn’t know why or how he ends up reaching for her. Knows he's got no damn right. But his hand slips over hers and he watches her chest heave and feels her fingers close like vices against his. 


	21. Chapter 21

_“I’m not giving you Shaun!”_

_Even as he fumbles through the grogginess of cryostasis, the man’s blue eyes are fierce. The lion protecting the lamb. Blue-tinged hands clutch at the child; both are smoking with the vapors of deep freeze. Like souls rising up from their bodies._

_And when the gun falls at eye level, he still fights. He stares down the bullet that is meant for him, eyes narrowing as a thumb pulls the hammer back._

_“Let the boy go now.”_

_He does not – a father ‘til the end._

_One thunderous clap and then the lion is tamed and the smoke has a new source now. It’s leaking out from what’s left of his once handsome face._

_Somewhere, muffled and far away, a woman screams too late; between the wailing of a stolen child and the echo of the gun, that wordless promise of retribution goes unheeded. She is left to rot in frozen terror, suspended in time and agony._

Talbot is not sure if it is her own gasp for breath or the cracking of her body against the metal grating that jars her most as she hits her knees. 

She only knows that the last lung full is lodged somewhere in her belly and the weight of it is pressing up and into her chest. Drowning in air too thick to gulp down and then someone somewhere is shouting but she can’t hear anything over the resounding whisper of death. Pressure is on her from all sides, warmth from bodies that seem to pile over her. They’re going to suffocate her. 

She won’t remember the names she screams, not even five minutes later, when she can almost breathe again as the familiar face of Knight Captain Cade hovers over her, his hands on her shoulders and his nostrils narrowing and flaring in time with hers as he coaxes her breath back to normal. In and out from a raw nasal passage, gradually deeper, stronger, longer. 

Not dead yet. 

A pumping heart is still thrumming in her chest. 

Might be nice if it stops. 

Her words of reassurance are unimpressive and it’s only when Cade lets go of her long enough to reach for something that she finds room in the small space to escape. She ignores his demanding shouts, the pulling of rank, disregards the stares from others as she flees. It takes a long minute of pounding at a door down the hall before she remembers that the paladin who would normally open it is not inside. He’s not even on the ship. If Danse is not here, then there is nowhere to run. 

Kells is as dubious of her current state of mind as Cade had been, as Talbot finds out a short time later. She goes to him of her own volition, no mentor at her back to guilt her into taking the odd job. _Give me work, anything, please. Anything_. She wants to be away from these claustrophobic hallways and the careful but not careful enough faces that glance away as she passes. 

“You’re under orders to rest, Knight.” 

“Initiate,” it’s a snarl complete with bared teeth, “I worked hard for that demotion.” Call her Initiate she demands of him, please. _Please_. Stop looking at her with those eyes that tease just how much he’s been told. 

The man rattles off about the downgrade in rank currently pending, thanks to her efforts at the Memory Den. _Efforts_. Talbot wants to spit on his boots. The Prydwen at large is so convincing in their treatment of her as some plague victim that she finds herself checking her arms for boils. Only the occasional scar marks her, save for her raw hands, and when the last of the proctors politely declines to give her any work, she goes to see _him_. 

That last resort. The one she’s put off for two days. 

Outside this time. She thinks it’s too cold for summer, though there is always a chill in this place. This mammoth suspended in the clouds, just as she is in time. 

She rips the thought from her mind, along with several strands of hair. 

_He_ will not undo her. 

“Talbot,” he says the moment she stops behind him. She’s not stupid; he’s doesn’t know what to call her yet. Knight, Initiate, that bitch, or the woman he fucks and fucks with. Her name’s the safe bet. 

“I want to go back to Squad Gladius.” 

“ _Denied_.” 

“No, not denied.” Look at her, damn it, man the fuck up. “Undeniable. I’m fine. In tip top shape.” 

She flexes her arms as though he hadn’t ever run his hands over the lean muscles. 

Finally, _finally_ , he turns and he shows nothing through squinting, unamused eyes and hollowed cheeks. How hard has he practiced to become so good at this so quickly? Talbot imagines him standing in the mirror and trying to frown cracks into the glass. It would make her smile if she wasn’t so damn frustrated. 

“Don’t make me say please, sir.” 

“I doubt you’d know how.” It’s a quick lashing. The pop of his words over the strong wind and she can’t tell if he’s playing with her or if they’re back at square one. 

“I can’t stay here, Maxson. I’ll go crazy.” 

One thick eyebrow raises and she has to stuff her hands in her pockets to keep from smacking him. His fault. If she is crazy, it’s his fault. Partially. He hasn’t helped matters. 

Suddenly, he’s too close. That large frame is standing too near and she’s got no room to step back without risking the walkway’s edge. But he brushes past her, a glancing blow that spares her the decision of tossing herself over the rail or touching him again. 

“Walk with me.” 

She takes his words literally; if he hadn’t wished for her to, then he should choose them more carefully. Not behind him, not after the price she’d paid, no, she’d tried that. Not in front of him either. Tried that too. He hadn’t responded well. She’ll walk beside him and match each step. 

Shoulder to shoulder, they move back down the causeway and she swears he’s actually trying to use those massive arms to knock her back. He’s too trained in his movements for the bumping against her much smaller body to be an accident. He’d opened this door, had found it in some negligible amount of humanity to be kind to her, and she’ll be damned if she lets him shut it in her face. She’ll risk her damn fingers if she has to. 

His observation room is where he takes her, as though he’s noticed the quickening of her breath from re-entering the confining space. From there she can see out at least and likewise, he likely won’t have to fight the temptation to sling her over the side of the ship. 

Maxson leaves the door open. Whether that’s a sign of trust or the opposite, Talbot’s not sure. The last time they had been in this room, she’d cut him from ear to ear. 

“Talbot –“ 

“Maxson –“ 

Whose glare is the angriest is hard to tell. Her insolence will never not surprise him and she knows it – it’s why she immediately declares her wishes before he ever has a chance to remember what he was saying. 

“I want to go back to Gladius.” 

“So you said.” 

“Or at least have an assignment! I’m not…a prisoner.” It’s a question. He hears it plainly because he frowns and this time the expression is softer, like he’s surprised she has to ask. Surprised she thinks so little of him. 

But Maxson is _Elder_ Maxson again a heartbeat later and his voice and eyes are hard. “You’re a soldier. You’ll follow the orders you’re given.” 

“I don’t _have_ any orders.” 

The half step he takes nearer to her is a warning she pays no mind to. 

“I don’t need kid gloves, Maxson.” Her words are slow and punctuated. So that he understands. Because she needs him to get it, to figure out how important it is that she not stay here, confined within walls that are more like the vault than she remembers them being. “Please, Arthur.” 

Talbot knows a mistake when she sees one. It’s flashing at her in big neon letters as soon as the name leaves her mouth. It’s too gentle, too familiar, two syllables spoken the way they had been that night. He tightens like leather pulled over a drum. 

She doesn’t look away or apologize. She’s gone before she can even think about finding the words. Out of the room, up the stairs, and _away_. It’s a rock and a hard place she’s stuck between. Maxson or the dark, spaceless walls of the hell she’d known she was meant for. Knowing doesn’t make the flames burn any less. 

. 

………………………………………………… 

. 

It is only chance that Maxson crosses paths with the woman twice in one day. She has done a masterful job at hiding, though he’s not sure where she could go on the Prydwen that she would not have heard the loudspeakers calling her to report to the command deck over and over again. If he’s dealing with a mental patient or a child, he hasn’t yet decided. That thought makes him wince. Like flint to kindling, Maxson knows immediately that he’s being disingenuous – fights the urge to shut his eyes and pretend he doesn’t feel the shame of it creeping up his spine. 

After hours and she’s crept into the vacant armory, tinkering away at her pipboy. The glow of it makes her look physically ill, unflattering and doing no favors to the purple rings around her eyes. He half expects her to run from him again, wonders if it’s just him who she’s so determined to flee when the air between them grows too dense and neither of them can swallow. 

Tonight however, she _allows_ him reach her side. Can’t be bothered to look up. 

“I’m going to assume that the recent stress you’ve been under is the reason for your inability to report as ordered?” 

Quietly, she hums. “You know what they say about assuming, Maxson. Makes an ass out of you and me.” 

“Mostly you, it would seem.” 

Talbot’s head drops back as her hands cease their dissection of the pipboy’s inner workings. How she manages such fine work when her fingertips are still raw, he can’t figure. But he reaches around her from where he stands at her back and plucks the little computer from her grasp. It’s battered and the leather wristband is fraying dangerously thin at the base. Regardless of the condition, it is one of the few he’s ever seen. 

“No,” she turns her face to his and there’s more space between them vertically than anywhere else, because he’s standing nearer her back than he should be. “You can’t have it.” 

It is his face now that shines an unsightly green. He squints against it before setting the computer back down. “Not my color anyway.” 

The joke eases her. Maxson can see the tenseness leave her shoulders with the next breath. She’s almost relaxed, the eggshells gone from under her feet. 

It’s been a long time since he’s spoken so…not tenderly. No, not that. _Softly_ towards her. But he tries all the same to keep his voice smooth, keep it from hitching as she blinks up at him expectantly. 

“You should be resting, Talbot.” 

“I should be a lot of things,” those strong shoulders roll with the weight of the world, “’Dead’ not least among them.” 

She goes back to fiddling with the pipboy when he doesn’t respond. A few moments later see the back panel snapped in and screwed into place. 

“This got me out of the vault, you know.” Her fingers pass over the dingy screen, back and forth, and Maxson knows she’s far away from the Prydwen then. “I remember seeing it the day they led us into the vault. I can still see the doctor’s face. Or, at least, I think he was a doctor. White lab coat and a bad comb-over kinda gave it away.” 

The pipboy is dropped unceremoniously to the workbench. Talbot grimaces at the racket and the shift in her body as she turns to look back at the damage has her left side pressing into Maxson’s chest. She’s the one with nowhere to go, so maybe he should step back, give them both breathing room, but she’s red-hot through his flightsuit. Burning up like a fever. Contagious. 

She speaks again and Maxson snatches his eyes up to meet hers. 

“Nate…he used one back in the War. He even named it. Wilson, I think? Said it kept him and his men sane on the bad days. Meanwhile, his young wife was safely at home…reading his letters when I should have been writing a paper on ‘ _Commonwealth Regulatory Law_.’” 

She sighs and the faint whisper over his neck threatens him with a full-on outbreak. There’s a gleam in her eyes, shining and wet under his shadow, and it’s suddenly hard to swallow. A throat sore with a heat that’s spreading to his heart. 

“I wonder sometimes…if he’d know better than me what the hell to do with that thing. It’s so _heavy_ , Maxson, I can’t…I just…I guess Nate did his time in the trenches. Maybe this is all just my turn.” 

Like any other illness, it’s physical. Because he’s sweating. He can feel it pearling at his hairline. Just a bodily reaction, his mind blares; she’s still a cutthroat liar and he’s still her superior officer. Nothing’s changed. Nothing save for the fact that she’s human. The sort that screams and cries and reels from the unfairness of the hand she’s been dealt. A woman doing everything she can to not remember and not to forget but to exist somehow functionally in between. She might not be in it for duty and honor, but she’s in it regardless. For people – Maxson understands. She’s here for _people_. Living, breathing humans like her. Her coping methods are unsavory, certainly – pitiless toward anyone but herself. 

But, perhaps, that is not the most unforgivable of sins. Not when she has seen the world come apart at her feet only to try to chew her down whole. Maybe he’s only adding to that injustice by judging her for it. 

“Why do you want to return to Gladius?” His abrupt question takes them both by surprise. 

A smile dances at the corners of her mouth. “I could lie and say I want to feel useful –“ 

“No, I would not suggest lying to me again.” 

“ _Or_ I could tell you that I hate these fucking walls. I hate trying to figure out which crony of yours started the rumor that I’m certifiable. I hate that Danse isn’t here because that means…” she lifts a hand only drop it limply back to her side, “That means there’s no one to run to when I _remember_.” 

Her eyes fall shut and Maxson can see the little blue veins that crisscross over the lids. They look stark and harsh and out of place. At his side, his fingers open and close until he has to all but claw at the material of his cuff. He can’t reach for her, not even as the first tear cuts its escape down the bridge of her nose. 

“I…You should see Knight Captain Cade, Talbot. As medical officer on the Prydwen, he’s the best equipped to deal with trauma. Psychological or otherwise.” 

It rings hollow in his bones. He sounds like goddamn radio. Static cracks his voice, the only sign of life as he drones on in well-rehearsed lines. 

“That an order, Elder?” 

The tears, what’s left of them, stop falling. Staunched by sheer will power alone. But her hands are shaking and she locks them behind her ramrod back. She must take his silence as dismissal, because she’s pushing past him as soon as the intensity reaches a fever pitch. 

Six steps. 

That’s how far he lets her run. 


	22. Chapter 22

“Talbot!” 

The woman does not heed him. She only stops when he makes her. He could have grabbed her arm, could have snatched her by the shoulder and spun her around by force alone. Either seems cruel. More than that, it seems pointless. A fool’s errand to try and detach himself from her completely - to pretend like she hadn’t ever kissed him and he hadn’t ever wanted her to. 

So Maxson takes her hand. Catches her in only a few long strides and reaches out until he can feel her small fist in his, one battered and one bred for battering. 

It stops her like a bullet between the eyes. 

“Talbot.” 

The heave of her shoulders, even as her back remains turned to him, reveals to him like some dirty secret that she’s been holding her breath. At least she doesn’t pull away. And he doesn’t let go. 

“ _Sir_?” 

That voice is a firing squad readying rifles and if he’s not careful, if he doesn’t say the right thing the right way, he won’t ever be able to touch her again. 

“I’ll assign you to Proctor Teagan. Three weeks with the quartermaster until you’re better recovered and then you’ll receive new orders.” 

The fist in his tightens, bare skin whining against the leather of his gloves. 

“Proctor Teagan?” 

It’s all she has to say. He can hear the scoff in her voice, the utterly lackluster reception his concession earns him. Goddamn her. _Damn her_. He’s trying to help her. He _wants_ to help her because he’s a goddamned fool and too weak a man to put her on the next vertibird out to Gladius’ checkpoint. 

“Yes. Three weeks’ duty rotation.” 

“ _Duty rotation_?” She finally turns and Maxson wishes down to his boot heels that she hadn’t. Because now she’s holding him. That fist is spread eagle in his hand, turning up and then gripping him with fingers that twine through his like a snake around its prey. “You said I wasn’t a prisoner and now you want to lock me in a _cage_?” 

Like trying to bail out a sinking battleship with a spoon. Completely inadequate to the task of dealing with her to the point that it’s almost a mockery to try. 

He’d thought they were past white flags. 

Then she blinks. She bats her eyes - not at him, though, no, there’s no trace of her witchcraft. She’s trying to push through a fog that’s got her as blind as it does him. Suddenly, that little hand is less a vice and more a lifeline. It’s like whiplash, trying to keep up, or like watching a missile fly overhead when he'd thought it'd land at his feet. 

The treaty is in the dimpling of her chin. He reads the accord on her face as her lips press thin and she looks away with her eyes shut tight. 

“I’m sorry,” she exhales, “I’m sorry.” 

Maxson can’t help but echo her. Might as well. If the ship’s going down, he’ll go down with it. He repeats the words again. At the helm, if he has a choice. 

Missiles and nuclear bombs don’t leave much in the way of remains. 

No pride. No anger. 

He wonders now as he looks down at her if all those battles were worth the cost they’d paid. He’d read from faded pages about a war that had shaken early America to its core. Kin against kin, fighting until one was broken and bloody and only scorched earth reminded them that maybe there wasn’t all that much difference between them. Wrong and right. Pride before the fall, he remembers. 

He’s not sure where the line should be drawn or even which of them could claim righteousness, if any remains at all or had ever existed. Because that human weakness he’d glimpsed before, those _tears_ , they’re leaking out from the corners of her eyes again and she can’t bear to let him see so she cranes her neck away until their joined hands won’t let her go any farther. 

Maxson thinks that maybe there should be trumpets playing somewhere because this is the closest he’s come to seeing any light at all where she’s concerned. 

He sees in that moment that they’re not so different. He sees and he comprehends and he grips her all the tighter for it. 

Any other man might have reached for her. Danse might have hitched her to him and let her weep into his chest. But Maxson lets her cry her tears unimpeded and doesn’t watch. Because that’s what he would want. And they’re not so different. 

Five minutes or five hours, she bites her lip until it’s raw to keep back the sobs and with each wrack of her body, her hand shakes a little harder within his. When she finally palms at her face there’s nothing there, because the tears have dried like ink on parchment, signatures to the declaration. 

“I’ll report bright and early.” 

Good, her voice is her own. It’s thick with feeling but it’s strong and it doesn’t hurt to hear it. 

Maxson nods. “Teagan will be expecting you.” 

“Goodnight, Arthur.” 

He sucks in a breath and hopes she hears him say her name. 

………………………………… 

Talbot isn’t sure when or how it happened. Could be she got sucked into some alternate reality. After surviving a nuclear armageddon in a freezer, that might not be a stretch. But for the third day in a row, she finds herself sat across a mess hall table from Maxson. 

The silence is hardly companionable but after three meals within two feet of each other, she suspects it might be approaching harmonious. 

If Danse were to walk in, he’d probably choke. 

The thought makes the corners of her mouth turn up and she hides it behind a swipe of her napkin. 

She isn’t quick enough. 

“Something funny, Knight?” 

“Peas,” she says quickly, “The peas are funny, Elder.” 

His brows nearly meet in the middle and it’s far too serious a look for a man his age. 

Maxson doesn’t call out her fib but he clearly doesn’t buy it either if the sudden drop in the room’s temperature is any indication. 

“Do you have a mother?” 

The look she gets nearly has her reaching for her jacket. 

“Do they still do the airplane thing? Mothers and peas, I mean.” Talbot scoops up a spoonful of the suspect green vegetable and putters around over her plate. “Shaun _hated_ peas. Like, projectile vomit kind of hate. On contact. Nate...he was the only one who could ever get that kid to eat anything. Of course, I guess that could have been my cooking but, I mean, he was a baby and even my mashed potatoes had to be better than that paste stuff in the jars, right?” 

The former blasphemy of speaking her late husband’s name in front of the man who looks so much like him is starting to feel like a forgivable transgression. Bad manners more than anything. But Talbot mentions him anyway. And Maxson listens. He tries to hide it behind narrowed eyes and tapping fingers but he lets her speak each time. 

“I’m hardly surprised.” 

“At my having spawned a picky eater?” 

“At you being a poor cook. I hear it requires patience.” 

She snorts and pops the spoonful of food into her mouth. “It was a matter a principle. Mother tried to teach me. I responded each time by dropping the Wedgwood…that’s the china, by the way, you post-apocalyptic inbred.” 

“Knight!” 

“Hmm? I said, ‘is there more bread?’” 

Of all the attacks she has launched at Maxson lately, this one is the volley he can’t escape. Like the man has never heard a joke before, he gapes and he flounders and she sits and hopes he’ll close his mouth before someone looks too closely. 

Because if she can see the rosiness blooming over his cheeks, they will too. 

It takes him the entirety of her mystery meat to stop looking like the student who’d lost his homework. It makes her smile so wide until it’s hard to chew her dinner. He’s almost a man when he blushes and blinks. 

“When is that demotion going through, by the way?” She can wear mercy like a shade of pink lipstick - it’s not her favorite, but every once in a while, it’ll do. Let him have something to talk about that won’t make him sweat underneath that battlecoat of his. 

Maxson’s angled jaw clenches beneath a beard that needs trimming. 

“It won’t be going through.” 

The statement sounds enough like an admission to stop her giddiness before it bounces her out of her seat. He says it low and slow and she knows the tone well enough to recognize that he’s been thinking long and hard over the answer he’s just given her. 

“Elder -” 

Maxson stands before too many people in the galley can look their way. “Always a pleasure, Knight. Enjoy your meal.” 

His departure is less a retreat than it is a judge banging a gavel. Verdict reached. Prosecution loses. 

What is left of her food tastes like tin. Civility and Maxson are an oxymoron best swallowed in small doses. Three nights of near silence outside of a polite greeting and the goodbyes that had followed. One night of a brief reign of terror at her hands and he was already quick to slap her with a reminder that while they are not friends, whatever hangs between them is a two-way street. She can laugh and prod and make him twitch but only if he can leave her speechless in the wake of his decision. 

Talbot almost misses the two-step they’d mastered so well, the one that had risked life and limb and their good names. _That_ had been a game she understood. That had been a _man_ she understood. 

This is something new. 

It’s uncharted waters. 

She hopes she doesn’t drown. 

……………………………….. 

For a ship its size, the Prydwen lacks privacy. But after so many months at the Brotherhood’s mercy, Talbot has since learned that the darkest hours are the ones best for the taking. A skeleton crew mans the behemoth and creeping through the empty belly is an easy task, easier still when there is the motivation of a peaceful shower awaiting her. More than a week and less bath water than she’d care to admit makes the risk worth it. Just a trickle down her back, barely enough to wet her hair, and cold to boot. 

But she’s alone and she can think. 

As a razor in bad need of replacing slides up one leg and then another, Talbot lets her mind wonder out beyond the groaning of metal and the roar of late-summer storms. She thinks of Sanctuary, of the grave that is being battered by this latest onslaught. Hopes the marker holds up and lets the water burn her eyes when something tells her it won’t. She thinks of Danse and stares at her feet when she remembers the dream that had dumped her from her rack. One hand, the guilty one, flexes. She hopes she didn’t hit him too hard after the Memory Den. Because he hadn’t deserved it. 

And Maxson. 

There’s the most dangerous thought of all. 

Whispers in her mind of things that make her skin prickle in treachery. 

It was easier when he’d just been Nate’s eyes and broad shoulders. Had been better when he’d been a game she could lay out and put away at will. 

Her own nails in her hair make her hiss and draw her hands away and shake them under the weak stream. 

If Danse would have been dumbstruck at supper the night before, he’d be horrified now. Because she should know better. Should be warier of the warmth between her legs than she is. Horror wouldn’t be the only thing he’d feel. Disappointment. She imagines the cut of it on his face and it drives her weight against the wall with all the force of a full body slam from behind. Water puddles at her feet and she stomps at it for spite. Spite because he should fucking be here to stop her foolishness or she should be there and Jesus, she’s tired of eating her meals without those curious eyes watching her movements while his hands try to emulate the careful way she’d fold her napkin and place her silverware. 

She hopes she hadn’t hurt him. 

There had been no goodbyes, no take cares, no please be carefuls. Not when Maxson, with his strong arms and guilty face, had swept her up and out of that wicked machine and away. So far away. Where there were no sweet honey eyes and boyish grins. 

Because Maxson isn’t Danse. And he’s not Nate. And he couldn’t be either if he tried. 

Talbot shuts the water off and if soap dries in her hair, so be it. She reaches for her towel and hides in it. Has half a damn mind to choke herself with it. But then Danse might miss her. 

She doesn’t want to hurt him. 

Her clothes seem to weigh more as she puts them back on. They sit heavier and tighter and the collar of her shirt snatches like fingers at her throat. It would take a paladin to pry her free, would take Danse at her side for her to breathe easy. 

Right now, Talbot’s not sure she can breathe at all. 

The walls are closing in. She’s seen something like it in a movie a long time ago. There’s an escape or a hero or…no one, if she’s the damsel, there’s no one because fucking Danse isn’t _here_. She’d hurt him and now he’s gone. Fucked it up. She’d ruined it and he’s left her behind. 

There won’t be much left of her knee caps if she keeps landing so hard on the grated floor. The metal bites into her but she can’t do a thing about it because there’s no air in her lungs. It burns. It down right fucking brands her from the inside out. And she’s going to die on her knees alone and half-dressed on the damn Prydwen. 

It’s going to fucking _kill_ Danse. 

Brown eyes. Brown like honey or maple syrup or café au lait. Brown like the antique paneling of her childhood home. Kind and sharp and a little rebuking when they need to be. And firm hands. Hands that hold hers as easily as they do the grip of a gun. 

“ _On your feet, soldier_.” 

She can _hear_ him. Has heard those words before. On repeat, she listens to that monotone that so efficiently disguises all that emotion he keeps at bay. Like a picture, she holds those brown eyes in her mind and she doesn’t let go until the first gulp of air makes it down her throat. 

Another and another. Because he’d be so damn disappointed in her if she went out a trembling mess. 

Her hands are patterned from the grating when she manages to do more than just inhale to bursting. Something warm is spreading beneath her knees. The sting is noticed with little more than a flick of her eyes down and then back up. Like she has that much blood to lose. No, there’s not going to be much left of her at all if this keeps happening. 

The first step is the hardest or some shit like that. 

And it is shit. Bullshit. Every last motivational quote that has ever been spoken. 

But she gets up regardless. One step and then two. Three. Four. Five. Teach her to be up and about after hours. She could use a good scolding. And if she can’t have brown eyes, she’ll settle for blue. 


	23. Chapter 23

He thinks he’s dreaming again when he opens the door. Third time’s the charm and this is the one, the one that can’t be real. He should have put the whiskey down an hour ago. If he had, he might have been able to catch her before she hits his floor. 

Talbot goes down as soon as there’s room for her to fall. 

“You’re a peach, Elder,” he hears from between his boots and he doesn’t know if it’s amusing or if she’s actually hurt. The closer he looks, the more he can see the vestiges of one of the fits Cade had warned him about, the more he can feel it in the muscle spasms beneath his hands as he grips her arms and pulls her to her feet. She’s all damp skin and scented soap that he could smother in if he stays too close. 

Put her down. Step away. It’s the clear tactical advantage. Because she’s still Talbot and for all her recent smiles and shining eyes, she’s not above putting a knife in his kidneys. Test the water to see if its boiling. 

“Don’t take me to Cade,” she says like she’s reading his mind, “Just…talk to me.” 

She might as well ask him to play Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun. 

“I just wanna _talk_ to someone, Maxson.” 

The hammer’s back before he can even raise his hands. Even as she’s curled in the first chair he could get her to, her knees pressed to her chest like a pre-war defibrillator, and her face hidden behind a sheet of wet hair. All the tacticians in the history of the world would disown him if they saw with what little hesitation he closes the door and locks out anyone but her. It’s a suicide attempt. 

His desk across the room puts distance between them, gives him time to unravel his hands from where they’ve clenched at his sides and put on a brave face. He’s never had to _try_ for one before – he’s Brotherhood to his bones, bred for fearlessness. It’s second nature like breathing. But not with her. Not with Talbot. 

He passes her a tumbler of whiskey – his tumbler – and then _waits_. 

“Always hated brown liquor.” But she swallows it anyway and passes the glass daintily back with an alcoholic’s hand, the kind that is steady even when the rest of her is threatening to fall through the cracks. 

Maxson puts it away and doesn’t look too closely at the imprint of her lips against the glass rim. 

Takes a long damn time about it, too. It’s time he can spend looking for that deck of cards she wields so well, the one she builds houses out of and uses to tell fortunes. But there are no cards on the table, none that he can see, and which she’s going to play, Maxson can’t be certain. 

“My sister used to do this,” Finally, she sweeps a hand through her hair and Maxson can _see_. Red eyes and pinprick pupils. “Haviland. One step up from Teacup, isn’t it? She…her hair was dark like yours and she had these _black_ eyes. And I thought she was crazy, Maxson – spent many a night in an emergency room sitting by her bed side and I hated her for it. Watchin’ her huff and sigh and prayin’ she didn’t break my fingers while she was at it. The family secret. Crazy as wet hornets.” She looks away. “Time doesn’t change everything.” 

She’s somewhere else now, far from the Commonwealth and 2288. He can hear it in her voice. Softer in a way he’s never heard before. Closer to what he remembers when he’d first met her and calculating in her self-depreciation. It draws him in, a magpie to silver, and too soon she’s tilting her head at him. 

“Maxson?” 

The gun’s gone off and somehow it had missed him and he’d missed it. She’s got a goddamn silencer on it. 

There’s something in her eyes. A gunmetal gleam under pinched brows that warns of sudden danger. He needs to say something, needs to fire back before this turns into an execution. She runs out of mercy before he can summon the words from his throat. 

“Forget it,” on shaky legs she stands and one small hand is tossed in his direction, “I forgot who I was talking to.” 

From the teeth and bite in her voice, Maxson knows immediately what she’s telling him without her saying it. Feels the name she’s not mentioning shoot to the front of his mind. He’s not _Danse_ , she means, not the one she’d normally run to. The only one she’d run to. But there’s something else. He sees it as she moves. Dark red drawing blue from her face. Her legs are unsteady because there’s blood on them, around the knees, soaking through her fatigues. 

“You’re bleeding.” 

She’s nearly made it to the door. Too caught up in whatever it is – mental instability or plain annoyance at him – that she doesn’t turn to look when he stands. 

“Don’t worry about it, sir. Cade’s got bandages -” 

“Sit down.” 

The door is easy to keep closed when he outweighs her by a hundred pounds. She can’t open it. Not with weak hands and fatigued muscles. Not even with the glare she tries to skin him with. 

“Sit _down_ , Talbot.” 

At first, he thinks it's just obstinacy when she doesn’t move. She _can’t_ move. Can’t because he’s three inches from her, all around her, his body on one side and his arm on the other to block any escape route. Instead, she just looks up at him. It’s all she has to do. Later, he’ll recall the lift at the corners of her mouth and he’ll believe it’s for him. Make himself forget that he’s seen that wolf-grin before. 

Eulalia or Talbot or both – she’s the woman with a family she weeps over, a sister named Haviland, and an asinine middle name, who speaks with long vowels and a drawl when she’s not paying attention. The woman who had hurt and been hurt in turn. 

The tactical advantage he’d sought is relinquished in favor of one more inch. Surrendered without regret for the softness of her breasts against his body. Maxson won’t admit to having missed the feeling in the late hours some nights. The hand above her moves to her face; she lets him touch her. Doesn’t flinch or turn away as he cups her cheek and runs his thumb against her bottom lip. 

He feels her next words more than he hears them, each syllable breathed over the pad of his finger. Be careful, she warns him. Be careful because there’s no going back this time. Does he want the blindfold or doesn’t he, before he steps in front of the firing squad? 

_Arthur_ will take his chances. 

He lifts her with his arms around her waist. God forbid she slip from his grasp now, smoke between his fingers. But she’s not going anywhere, not as she wraps her legs around him and sighs when he braces her against the wall. They might both taste like liquor but if he doesn’t have the excuse of being drunk, she certainly can’t claim it. Her skin is hot, flushed, as he leans his forehead against hers and somewhere he can feel her pulse running away to catch his own. 

She’s soft and deadly. The scabbard over the sword edge. 

“I will _help_ you, Talbot,” it’s the only offer he can make, he’s got nothing left if she doesn’t take this one, “If you let me.” 

Either above and in front of her or at her side. Her superior officer or Nate Talbot’s successor. Her choice. After the last few days, he understands now that he can’t be both. 

Her nose brushes his ear and he can hear the _life_ beating inside her. Human. Woman. The sort with an honest to God heart. 

“I believe you’ll try.” 

It should sound more mocking than it does. 

The tip of his tongue darts against her top lip. Whiskey. Whiskey and tears. He can taste it and smell it on her breath when she gasps raggedly, clenching down all around him with what strength she’s got left. Cool fingertips pull him closer and then he’s lost. Gone to the tide and crashing against her with open-mouthed kisses and teeth. 

. 

……………….. 

. 

Blue eyes are going to _shatter_ her. 

Talbot’s looking back at them and the reflection in them is flat and distorted, a horrible and twisted mirror image amidst a shade of dark spruce and tainted with a fondness she wasn’t expecting. This isn’t just Maxson indulging himself. He’s looking back at her like he’s glad she hadn’t walked out that door. 

Beyond what she’d seen that night in the infirmary when she’d taken his hand, past what it had been when he’d taken hers in the armory. Clear in intent and smoky with _feeling_. And cruel, so cruel, because that blue is showing her exactly the kind of woman she is. But one hand is sliding up her spine, open palmed, and the other is holding her to him as though he’s afraid she might cast herself from his arms. 

She just might. 

Maxson’s warm though – so warm. But he’s not quite warm enough. He’s not feverish like her paladin and his touches are heavy when they’d probably be shy. A lover’s fingers rather than a friend’s. Talbot’s not sure they can be _friends_. That thought vanishes with a pinch of teeth at her lip and then there’s a tongue at the roof of her mouth making her thirsty; drinking him in would be easy – thallium instead of cyanide. 

But it would be so, so cruel. 

Talbot decides this world has enough of that. 

Her eyes droop half-way – she can cope with the reflection and the unnamable feelings in small doses – and she closes her mouth until it’s just his lips against hers. New kisses. Calmer ones. Ones that let her think and breathe and…just be. Her lips over his cheek, steeper and less full than Danse’s, and over the bridge of a roman nose that’s not quite as chiseled. Unmapped territory. Something that might be worth her time to learn. 

Worth her time. 

Worth her respect, too. 

Talbot believes that spruce blue will do just fine for a little while. 


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's just insert the requisite apology here, shall we? The holidays brought back some rough issues for me and I've learned that health has to come before writing or anything else. Two steps forward, eight hundred and thirty seven steps back, yeah? Anyway, this is a bit short and not half of what you all deserve but I think baby steps suit Talbot about as much as they suit me right now. So enjoy and I hope very much to internet-see you soon! Best wishes for 2017 to everyone :)

Working with Teagan is about as much fun as a rad shower and Talbot comes to accept this hard truth as fact. She gets through the days with rolling eyes and snark that’s wearing too thin. Whether or not it is happenstance that Maxson conspicuously appears in Engineering as she is released from the day’s bondage remains to be seen. He is with Ingram, hands clasped behind his back even as his eyes catch Talbot upon her entrance – catch her and pin her, she thinks. Like a harpoon. Several days and nights with quiet, _peaceful_ lunches scattered in between have passed and few words have been exchanged. An unspoken mutual agreement that silence is preferable to bitterness and veiled slights. It is also preferable to admitting that neither of them have any idea where to go from here. 

For her part, she pays the pair little mind, going instead to a power armor station that is not her own, one she wipes down daily of any dust and oil that might dare gather, any reminder that her _other_ is not present to do it himself. There are tools atop the table _he’s_ held, a pair of gloves that fit only _his_ hands…she keeps these things for him and coolly ignores the prickling of flesh at her neck that tattles on the watching eyes across the room. It is a small comfort, keeping these things, these well-loved things, and Talbot doesn’t care if Maxson if finds it irksome or petty or – 

“Knight Talbot?” 

Maxson’s voice is met with the clatter of a heavy wrench as it slips from Talbot’s fingers. She wipes her hands of grease and Danse’s fingerprints before turning. 

“Elder?” She nods to the other woman, “Ingram.” 

Ingram grunts in response, fiddling with a radio transmitter that hisses and screams with each indelicate turn of the dial. Maxson stands stiffer and straighter all the while and Talbot tries not to look too closely in case she causes him to flinch. 

Soon, he asks her a question and his voice is so mild it makes her eyes narrow. 

“How’s the work with Proctor Teagan?” 

“His body’s in the munitions locker. Should have at least three days before things get ripe,” her lips offer a wry twist that makes the Elder blush prettily, “I’ll take care of it, sir.” 

Clearing his throat does little to hide Maxson’s chuckle. He eases, those wide shoulders a little less tense and his eyes less reluctant to meet hers. It’s new – the neutral territory they find themselves on. She won’t ruin him with a word and his fingers don’t twitch when she gets within strangling distance. 

Those blue eyes are darker today, Talbot notices, tired and in the wrong the face. An older man’s eyes. She’s seen them before, so long ago, has woken up to find a pair like them staring at the floor when they should have been closed and resting. Kind words had helped those eyes. She has none to offer Maxson, but a laugh is as easy a thing to manipulate as a lie, a toy gun instead of the real thing. 

It’s an acceptable, if uneasy, change that leaves her shifting from foot to foot until the radio shrieks suddenly and Ingram is barking into the mic. 

Crackles make Talbot flinch. Too loud. Static and air and an empty line. Or it is empty until a rough monotone breaks through and drives her back a step. It’s too much work to try and hide the confusion – the complete and utter delight that’s taking over her features and saying too much too loudly. But Maxson’s mouth lifts at one corner and _he’s done this_. 

Voluntarily. 

She hasn’t asked. Hasn’t breathed to him the name… 

“This is Paladin Danse of Recon Squad Gladius reporting. That you, Proctor?” 

“It is at that, Paladin.” Ingram’s words take too long, are too slow, and she needs to shut her mouth and let Paladin Danse of Recon Squad Gladius report so that Talbot can hear him. 

He talks of tech and coordinates and high powered magnets that have never brought a tear to Talbot’s eye before now. 

The report is over too soon. Danse will be gone again and the fear of it has Talbot pressed at Ingram’s back, head craning around and willing the radio to never, never cut off. 

“Got more orders for you before you go, Paladin.” 

Home, Talbot thinks, his orders better include coming _home_. 

The metal work hand, however, does not offer the mic to Maxson. Half-convinced it’s a dream, Talbot takes it with healing fingers that tremble just enough to hurt before they clasp the lifeline tight. She’s eighteen again and a boy’s calling the house; the words in her head she’s spent days daydreaming abandon her. 

So, she says his name. His name because he might say hers too and the world might be survivable for one brief moment. The hesitation on the other end threatens to strangle the breath from her. 

“…Talbot?” 

She hopes they don’t see her shake. 

“You…are you…” The radio’s gone blurry with the burning in her eyes. “Hang on – Elder Maxson’s saying something.” 

He isn’t. His brow is low over his eyes as he watches her. 

“He says he needs you to report to the Prydwen yesterday. I need help hiding a bod-“ 

“Belay that order, Paladin!” Maxson’s all but trampled her into the table, his hand over hers on the mic and squeezing too tightly. 

Danse barks at her from the other line and she swears she can hear the swipe of his hand through his hair. 

With a grin and an acquiescing dip of her head, she wrestles the line back from the man who’s stolen it. “Oh, sorry. Misunderstood, Paladin.” Her grin will split her cheeks before this is over. “I do have orders for you though. Be careful. There’s an ass kicking with your name and rank on it when you get back.” 

Danse is quiet for a moment more than her heart can take. “I’d say it’s well-earned, Knight.” 

Sorry, he means. He’s sorry for all that’s happened. Talbot knows and she understands because she’s damn sorry, too. Maxson takes the mic from her when she offers it and then she is gone from the armory before she has to hear Danse say goodbye. 

. 

…………………………………….. 

. 

She has always preferred the witching hours and ignores the connotations that arise with a glance at the wall clock. She's put off thank yous and appreciation long enough. It should be easier - would be if it were anybody else, about anything else. But Maxson and his new damned understanding has her stomach in knots and her mind in worse shape still. 

Her own carefully woven black magic, the spit and brimstone of it all, had been met not with a tactician's mercy but a man's kindness. 

It would be infuriating if she weren’t so damned relieved by it. 

Every shadow she passes whispers just how much she doesn't deserve it, until, like an atheist at a tent revival, she stands at Maxson's door. Can't quite swallow down what's truth or fiction because her instinct is swearing one or both might be poison. 

She turns away three times before he finally opens it for her, uprighting the board again and scattering her pieces. 

"Talbot." 

"...thank you," she hates those words - they've never mattered before - and hates them worse when she means them. A rich child's curse. "I mean, for letting me speak to...Paladin Danse." 

Maxson could spare her the embarrassment and at least look like he doesn't believe her. Like he's suspicious or unmoved or anything other than dipping his chin and saying, "You’re welcome." 

So, Talbot dances. With matches under her feet, she shifts and she rolls her shoulders and sucks in her cheeks to hide the blushing. His door isn't open wide enough for an invitation and she's still got what's left of her pride clutched tight between her teeth. 

"Well,” retreat, she means to say, sound the bugle, “Peace on earth, goodnight, and all that." 

It's cotton in her mouth. The civility, the despicable decency of it all...impossible to swallow but she can't quite spit it out either. Somewhere far below, past the Commonwealth dirt and the irradiated everything, Hell is freezing over because there's a pressure at her hip before she can take the first step, a slip of fingertips that makes her soles scuff the floor. 

Maxson’s eyes aren't on hers when she turns. He's checking the corners and the hallways, watching the shadows and threatening time to a standstill. He kisses her and it's different. His lips on her cheek, not her mouth, quick like blinking or a heartbeat or a bullet from a chamber. 

"Goodnight, Talbot." She doesn't notice the slip of one finger over her cheek, too lost searching the new blue. "Try to sleep well." 


	25. Chapter 25

Talbot’s opposition to Boston Airport is both personal and fundamental to her being; she is scowling from the moment her feet touch the tarmac to when she finally places down the heavy box she has been carrying. Scribes dutifully follow her with the rest of Teagan’s supplies and then scamper away when her harsh gaze finds them like a lash. 

“Something the matter, Knight?” 

Maxson stands not far away, watching – or babysitting, more like, if only for a moment – before he attends to his own business. Liberty Prime’s construction is well underway. He can hear the buzzing of tools and the accompanying electric sizzles half-way across the airport. 

“This place was depressing enough two hundred years ago, now it’s…just…” Her curled lip says enough. “Though I do appreciate the fieldtrip, _sir_.” 

There’s a smile behind her words, one that is almost warm if he doesn’t look too closely. It is gone within a breath as her eyes find a portion of collapsed wall and rest there. She looks forlorn, Maxson thinks, the nondescript color of her eyes lost somewhere in time. 

Maybe his next question isn’t polite. But he’ll try these waters anyway and see if he can find the riptide. 

“Did you spend much time here, Knight?” 

She swallows and throws up a lying smile. “Not if I could help it.” 

Whatever she’s remembered has her all too happy to dismiss him and she turns to her boxes, clipboard in hand, a pen scraping begrudgingly over the checklist. Icy waters these, nearly a return to what they had once been. 

Maxson has forgotten how the coolness can bite. 

It might be the echoing of his boots on the floor that draws the words from her, opens her up like an old book with a creaking spine and dusty pages, one that has secrets if he can only find them. 

“I…I always preferred to drive,” she doesn’t turn to look at him as she speaks and he doesn’t ask her to, “It’d take, I don’t know, maybe sixteen hours. Nate, he could never understand it. Why drive that long when a flight was only two hours? And…I mean, after Shaun was born, well, you can’t really keep a baby in car for that long, can you? It’s suicidal.” She clutches at the list, her fingers flexing over the brittle particleboard and threatening to crumble it to dust. 

Maxson could say that he doesn’t know, could say that sixteen hours in a glorified metal can seems like a torture dreamed up by the Institute itself, but he lets her talk instead. Let’s her talk and eases a few careful steps toward her. 

“The ticket counters used to be over there, where the wall’s fallen in. We…Nate and I,” Talbot swallows hard and the words sticking in her throat make her eyes water, “ _ahem_ , we decided to take Shaun back to visit my parents down south. Havi – my sister, I mentioned her, didn’t I? She’d gone and stuck her head in an oven two months after Shaun was born so…I thought to myself that maybe we should share a little bit of our happiness.” 

Maxson’s almost reached her now, can see the shudder of her shoulders that he’d missed before. A hand on her arm would cause too many raised eyebrows. More than that, he’s not sure she could take it, his acknowledging of the weakness she indulges him with as the first tear falls. 

“Ha!” Her own sharp bark of laughter forces her face away. “That’s a goddamn lie. I didn’t think of it. Nate did. He said it was a good idea and I believed him, I always believed him. So, we, uh, we packed up and came here. Made it all the way to the counter there. Shaun opened his mouth about the time Nate started to pull out his wallet and…just…I mean, high-velocity, projectile vomited all over the airline lady.” 

For a moment, half a chuckle leaves her breathless and the shine in her eyes as they meet his isn’t quite as melancholy as it had been. He doesn’t have time to smile back, not as she blinks away the memory and the gleam that comes with it. 

“Right over there,” Talbot points, “Needless to say, we grabbed our bags and our boy and figured we’d try again the next week. The bombs…they fell three days later.” 

If he looks close enough, Maxson can see the mushroom cloud in her eyes, haunting the memories it had burned away. She must feel it, because she hides behind lowered lashes and watches the floor. He wishes hard that she wouldn’t hate him should he reach for her, wouldn’t try to dismember the hand he might place on her shoulder. But she would. She would because he would, too, if it were him. If he pretends not to see the cracks in the marble, maybe there aren’t any at all. 

“And my parents, Daddy – his name was Heustis – he hadn’t been well that past year. They never got to meet Shaun. Not once, Maxson. And I wonder sometimes, if that kid hadn’t thrown up those damn peas, how things might have been different.” 

She turns the clipboard over in her hands instead of looking at him. “I might be radioactive material right now instead of making sure there’s enough cram and reconstituted coffee to go around.” 

It’s _almost_ her first name that slips from his lips. It doesn’t though, because Maxson catches himself and chews down the patronizing softness. Let’s it sit in his belly and hurt him instead of her. 

In place of kindness and comfort, things he can’t give her, things she won’t accept, Maxson does the best he can. 

He clears his throat to chase away the ghosts in the air and says, “Yes, well…When you’re done here, Talbot, there’s a garage at the end of this hall.” He points and catches her eyes when she glances his way. “I’ll be there.” 

“You got it,” she says and then her back is already to him again, her eyes looking out over the multitude of boxes. “See you in a couple of months.” 

Just like that, the mask is back, stalwart and defensive. Uncrackable to anything other than recollection. 

Maxson doesn’t linger. 

Down the hall, Liberty Prime is nearly spilling out of from the confines of that garage. He is beyond pleased to see it, letting the welding sparks and the whir of metal distract him from memories that aren’t his own. War is easier to think of than babies and fathers, and locating nuclear ordinance is a welcome change from a crumbling bulwark he’d once believed so unassailable. 

“Sir,” a voice calls to him over the din of reanimation. “We’ve received a transmission that Squad Alpheus has been hit outside of Boston Common.” A report is being pressed into his hands before another word is said. 

“How badly?” 

“Four casualties, Elder. The whole team, save for Knight Williams. He reports their tech was looted and the synth prisoner they had been transporting was freed.” 

Whatever joy Maxson felt at Prime’s progress quickly dissipates. Four dead soldiers and a renegade synth. 

“Who was responsible?” 

The answer is not what he expects. 

“Those guerillas - the Railroad, sir. Williams reports they initially fired smoke grenades and attempted to take off with the synth in the confusion. Shots were exchanged and according to him, all hell broke loose. Three of their members were killed as well.” 

Losses will never be easy. Maxson feels it in his chest as he dismisses the knight, the unread report still tight in his grasp. He’d meant to wait, had told _her_ that he would. But the battle before him won’t let him. Duty makes him choose. He does as he must, and when she comes to find him an hour later, Maxson is already gone. 

. 

……………………………………………………….. 

. 

It’s been nearly a week since Talbot has seen either hide or hair of the illustrious Elder. She _almost_ regrets his absence after the fifth lunch spent solely in the presence of knights who chew with their mouths open. Hell, she realizes the vicious truth, she’s in hell and she’s been good and damned along the way. But it’s the end of week seven and there aren’t many more days before she’s finally got some company. _Real_ company. 

Some nights she believes she just might survive it. 

It’d be easier if Arthur Maxson would just make up his damn mind on whether or not he wants anything to do with her, because 1800 hours finds her standing moodily at his door when she could be polishing up her paladin’s work station for his return. Anything would be preferable to turning to inspect the walls every time somebody walked by. 

She really should knock and just get it the fuck over with. 

Maybe that’s why she turns away, her boots scraping too noisily, her curses too loud as she retreats without looking back. She follows the same trail she always does, the one that leads her to the workbench that isn’t her own, where it’s peaceful and familiar and not unlike curling into one of Nate’s old shirts. 

Nate had smelled like aftershave and spearmint - she has to remind herself of that as she reaches for a rag and begins to work at a cog she’s polished before, the olfactory memories she’d once known so well fading into the tang of oil and gunpowder. 

It should horrify her and she clenches her jaw because she knows as much. She grits her teeth and shuts her eyes and tries to tamp down the excitement of being able to breathe in that sharp aroma once more. 

Her fingers wrap too tightly around the little metal piece – something so small, she doesn’t even know how it could possible matter in the scheme of a giant suit of armor, but it does. It does, she just knows it does, and she squeezes it harder until her skin protests beneath one edge. 

She’s going to start over. Aftershave and spearmint be damned. She’s going to start over because she’ll die if she doesn’t, she’ll crumble and fall to pieces, scattering to the wind, a little lost cog, and Christ as her witness, she owes Danse more than that. 

She puts the cog down atop the workbench, leaves it where her paladin can find it later, and tosses aside the rag in time to notice the faint whisper of leather stretching behind her. 

It would damn figure. 

“You’re lurking, sir,” Talbot doesn’t bother to turn and look at the man who has come to rest in the hallway nearby. 

Maxson, for his part, doesn’t come any nearer. She can feel the burn of his eyes on her and she knows she’s been caught once again tidying things that don’t belong to her. 

“I’ll have you know this is my ship, Knight, I have no need to lurk.” There’s a scowl in his voice and Talbot makes a point not to let the annoyance show. “Unlike some people.” 

“A little indecision never hurt anybody, Maxson.” She says breezily and from the protestation of his battle coat, she knows she’s got him at least half as bothered as she is herself. 

“You could have knocked, Talbot,” he says, “I would have answered.” 

“Wasn’t important, Elder. Just mess hall gossip. Scuttlebutt?” Isn’t that what they called it? People like him? Like Nate? She knows Maxson doesn’t believe her; it doesn’t matter. He knows better and she knows that he does, so she lies to just irritate him. 

But when he says nothing else after a long enough pause to make her grind her teeth, Talbot catches herself opening her mouth to speak in his stead. Only because it is too quiet, she tells herself, too quiet and too lonely and it’s all still so maddening without someone with whom she can keep the demons at bay. 

“How’s the progress on Liberty Prime?” 

It’s bait and they both know it, too casual to be genuine, and the implication that she even gives a damn hangs in the air between them, heavy and accusing. 

“It’s coming along nicely,” he humors her and maybe she’s a little grateful, but she doesn’t let him see relief in her eyes, turns them away and looks anywhere else. He steps closer, one cautious step at a time, and it’s infuriating how he’s learned to keep his head. 

“I’m sure you’re pleased as punch, Elder.” Talbot sniffs, turning her nose up and keeping her back to him. “One step closer to Commonwealth dominion.” 

Maxson hums at her back. Doesn’t bother to correct her because, why would he? It’s the first honest thing she’s said to him tonight. She can feel him now, hovering a hair’s breadth from her, unwilling to touch unless she touches first. 

“Talbot –” 

She can’t turn to face him. Doesn’t know why her feet are rooted to the spot, but they are, catching her between him and a workbench she can’t quite reach. And _God_ , does she want to reach out. To brace herself there amongst the things that don’t really mean much, little pieces to a bigger whole, one that isn’t here to put them together. 

Only lunatics cry over nuts and bolts. 

But there are tears in her eyes, sure as the world. 

She’ll swear until she dies that it’s her knees giving way that make her fall back into him, her back to his chest, because surely, she can’t be so damn broken just yet that she wants him to comfort her. He has better things to do. Always does. Things like Liberty Prime or war making or whatever the hell else he gets up to while she bides her time and does little more than exist. 

Maxson slides his arms around her middle and has it been so long that she’s forgotten how it feels to be pinned like this? Held when no one is around to look? Her mouth tastes like cotton and if it’s because of Maxson’s breath over the shell of her ear or the flames she swears are licking at her heels, she isn’t certain. But he says her name again and no one has spoken so gently to her in so _long_. 

He must hear her choke his name; his fingers splay over her uniform, widening his claim until her back arches and it’s his turn to bite back pleas and curses. For a short moment, just the time it takes her to suck in a breath and find that no, she can’t, he grips her tightly enough to hurt. 

He pulls back about the time she wrenches forward. Her hands find the workbench and it’s there that she steadies herself, cogs and bolts and copper pieces under her fingers to remind her that she’s almost made it. 

The question comes so softly that Talbot half believes she’s imagined it. Because she’s never heard that tone from him, didn’t know he was capable of soft words that screamed so loudly that he’d seen her reach for her paladin’s belongings like a drowning woman to a life preserver. 

“What will you tell him?” 

She’s lost her fucking mind. Hearing voices that aren’t real and trying to ignore the stinging in her eyes. But he has asked the question, she can see it in his eyes – the impatience, the imminent gleam of the axe soon to drop. 

She lifts her chin to feel like she used to, back when he feared her, before the world started tearing at the joints. 

“What’s there to tell him, Arthur?” 

Nothing. Not a damn thing. Even if the cracking of her voice says otherwise. She can feel the breath he heaves as it fights and dies somewhere in the strands of her hair. A man such as himself should be more careful, should better hide the relief that’s so clearly sinking into his bones. 

“I…” Talbot wants to choke back her next words, to grind them to nothing between her teeth until there’s nothing left for her to say. Maybe once, she would have. But some days, some minutes and seconds, hell is so close at her heels that the blistering heat of it makes her confess things she ought not. And now, pressed between Danse’s workbench and fucking Maxson’s chest, she swears it’s as hot as it’s ever been. 

“I don’t – damn it all. It’s just that I don’t…these last few weeks, they’ve been hard, alright? But I don’t _regret_ them,” her teeth sink into her cheek and later, she’ll blame of the taste of blood for her spitting up what she does next, “I’m not ashamed of…Jesus Christ, of whatever this – whatever’s happened here.” 

Here. _Between us_ , her gesturing finger explains well enough in case he’s as lost as she is right now. Her eyes cut to a far-off corner so that she doesn’t chance a look at his face. 

“I don’t hate you, Maxson,” the words are barely more than air but he must hear them, because her damned peripherals notice the sharp rise of his chest. “And don’t…don’t try to make me. Don’t try to…I don’t know, fucking _fix_ that when Danse gets here.” 

The fingers that sneak under her chin like knives in the dark aren’t what she expects. She wants to bite at them when she first feels the shock of them, wants to pull away so that the sudden heat can’t smother out the flames she’s already reaching for. 

The world stops making sense when she allows him to turn her face and she feels the thumb along her cheek like a dagger between her ribs. She doesn’t know how, after all this time, she’s missed the thin ring of silver that pollutes the blue of his eyes. Maybe she just hadn’t wanted to notice. 

It’s rare that she doesn’t know what Maxson’s thinking; she’s made a damn sport out of it in the past. But as he looks down at her, she can’t begin to understand why he’s still standing here. 

“Three more days,” he says quietly. Three days until there’s someone standing at this bench other than her. Just seventy-two hours. She can survive that much. 

She doesn’t mean to thank him and she doesn’t mean to keep looking when his lids flutter in surprise and a blush creeps over the bridge of his nose. 

“You’re welcome.” 

Something tells her he means it. 


	26. Chapter 26

Talbot discovers too late into her forced labor with Teagan that the man cannot abide singing. She’s bordering on giddy during her shift – the very last – with him that afternoon and by 1700 hours and her fourth rendition of ‘the Wanderer,’ the proctor is adamant that he can inventory the ammunition without her help. Freed from her servitude, she turns instead to the galley and takes her supper early. 

Only a few soldiers mill about and the ones who do give her a wide berth. She eats in _peace_. She chews her colorless vegetables and tinny meat and knows that it won’t be long before this is all over. Nearly out the other side of purgatory, she’ll scrape through the rest. The hard part, the _impossible_ part, is behind her. 

It’s all new now. If she wants it to be. 

She thinks she does. 

If it’s tactless of her to look for Maxson so soon after the events of the day before, then she decides she can settle for being rude. He’s in his usual place, that throne room of his, replete with windows overlooking the kingdom below, and looks as though he’s absorbed all the burdens she’s shed. 

Talbot greets him with a smile and doesn't expect her heart to strain like it does when he makes a valiant effort to return it. 

“I could be mistaken,” Maxson begins, dropping a stack of reports atop a nearby side table, “but I was under the impression that afternoon shift doesn’t end until seven.” 

He folds his arms over his chest and the motion makes the little crescent shaped holes in his coat flare and spread. She had done that, had put them there on a darker day that seems far back in the past now. 

“The proctor’s a real swell guy,” Talbot says, “Told me to go play outside.” 

Maxson shakes his head, content to accept the half-truth. She’s grateful for it, deeply so, and she hopes he knows as much. She feels his eyes on her for a long moment, just enough to make the nerves in her belly start to twist - these are new rules they’re playing with and she doesn’t know them. Neither does he, or maybe he decides there are none at all, because it takes him a while to speak again. 

“You’re here about Squad Gladius.” 

It’s not a question. He’s stated it as fact, one that should apparently be known to both of them. Talbot feels the surprise as it blooms across her face; it puts heat in her cheeks and makes her blink dumbly at him. No. And yes. She doesn’t know why she’s come here exactly, but she’s here and they don’t have to talk about favors. 

She takes a breath. Hopes he doesn’t read her hesitation as the lie it’s not. 

“No. That’s not why.” With a sigh and a few steps, she stands beside him, her eyes cast out toward the Commonwealth far below. “I don’t know why.” 

Maxson relaxes, less like a fuse too near a fire, and turns with her to watch the sun as it surrenders to the evening ahead. 

“You seem tired,” she says once she’s counted the colors in the sky. The corners of Maxson’s mouth turn down at her words and for just a moment, his eyes cut to hers. He wishes she hadn’t said anything, she can tell it, but they have to talk about something because nothing’s still too damned uncomfortable. 

“Progress on Liberty Prime is slow,” he finally admits, “It’s...frustrating. The Commonwealth is not as forthcoming with supplies as I’d hoped.” 

Talbot looks up at him and waits for him to look back. “And are you asking for them or taking them?” 

“Believe it or not, Talbot, I’m not as brutal as you want me to be -” 

“That’s not what I meant.” 

“Isn’t it?” Maxson turns to her and the toes of his heavy boots echo on the steel floor. She can feel the reverb under her, running up her legs, until even her bones feel like there’s been a mistake made in coming here. 

“No,” she replies quietly. “No, it’s really not.” 

His eyes are hard like they used to be, that flashfire that she’s started burning bright in their center, and it takes more from her to keep steady than it once had. But the fire eventually dies - she won’t feed it, won’t give it the oxygen it needs, not today - and Maxson turns his face to stare instead at the grating below their feet. 

“I’m…” Maxson hesitates, “ _sorry_. It’s been a long day.” 

“I know something about those.” She bumps her shoulder against his arm; it seems strange, too congenial, but when the embarrassment doesn’t set in, it seems like it’d been the right thing to do. 

“Three weeks with Teagan has felt like _years_.” She scrunches her nose. “It’s given me wrinkles.” 

At that, Maxson manages a laugh. Short and breathless, more of surprise than humor. All these new sounds he makes - they’re so much better than harsh words and accusations. 

They settle in beside one another, as comfortable as it’s possible for them to be. Talbot can’t shake the slight knot in her stomach and from the way Maxson stands, she suspects neither can he. It’s like managing to stand on ice after getting her feet under her; she’s slipped so many times before. 

When she asks her next question, it’s not because she’s meant to. But the quiet between them is so strange her skin starts to prickle, and she can’t help but say _something_. 

“Why...” Talbot can’t find her words. Maxson’s one of few who’s ever made her lose them. “Why did you let me radio Danse?” 

For just a moment, Maxson looks as though he might lie to her. She can see it in the corners of his mouth and the way he swallows down whatever reason it is he’s prepared. She almost wishes he would. That would be familiar. Something to let her know exactly where on the chessboard she stands. 

At last, Maxson only asks, “You wanted to speak to him, correct?” 

Talbot looks away, following Maxson’s eyeline towards the horizon. Reds and deep oranges over dark earth - the entire Commonwealth looks as though it might be burned away all over again. And here they stand watching, the pair of them. 

“You know I did,” she tells him quietly. It’s his admission, not hers. She’s only said it for him. The image of a king lost to time comes to mind as she steals a glance at him. The golden light, so harsh against the land, softens his edges and warms the color of his eyes. 

“I appreciate it, Maxson,” she says, just in case he somehow doesn’t understand, doesn’t believe her. She leaves him with those words and the sunset and knows as she slips away that it would be a lie to think she does it to spare him the burden of responding. She simply doesn’t know what else to say - not as he shines so brightly, hard to look at, even if she wants to. 

. 

……………………………. 

. 

Maxson watches the sun go down for the first time in a long time. Shadows creep slowly over the Commonwealth, hiding the ugliness of it. The passing of minutes and the encroaching darkness does little to erase the lingering sincerity Talbot had left in her wake. It had been new and timid, something Maxson doubts will ever not seem foreign coming from her. 

It tickles the back of his throat like spices. 

Or the onset of an illness. 

It’s the reason he seeks her out that night as the halls are clearing. By her side in the blink of an eye, whispering quick words before anyone can look twice. Then he’s gone, much like she had been. Out of sight but not mind. The Prydwen’s bow, he’d told her. 2300 hundred hours. Boss’s orders, he had added, just to see that appreciative quirk of her mouth. 

Spices and sickness. 

She’s there as asked. The sound of the heavy door scraping open and then closed only makes Maxson’s hands clutch tighter at his back. There’d been doubts. Whispers in his brain that had said she would ignore him. Ceasefires and accords were all well and good but allied cooperation was another thing entirely. 

The night air must be cool for her, because she squeezes her arms tight around herself as she takes a place by his side. All at once they’re exposed yet blissfully alone. Open to the air, the black sea asleep below them and the Commonwealth beast bedded down in the dark of the night. Clandestine, Maxson thinks. Something secret. Something for him to keep. 

“I’ve never been out here,” Maxson can hear the contentment in Talbot's voice, the notes still to be learned, a recent lull between the crashing crescendos from before. 

“It has little value outside of observation. Maintenance work here is...precarious. As you can imagine.” 

The tone is conversational. The words pleasant. To talk and be talked to. 

“It’s dark out here. Just the moon.” Talbot lifts her face and the lunar glow is kind to the shadows of her eyes. “It always surprises me, you know. Looking up and seein’ it, hanging there just like it always has. Some experts said smoke and ash would block out the sky. Kill what the bombs didn’t. Guess they lied.” 

“I take it that it looks the same?” 

“Mmm, like an old friend.” Her eyes cut through the darkness and if it’s sadness or relief shining back at him, Maxson can’t tell. “I never felt like it was quite the same here. Not like home. Too much light from the city. But now...now it looks like I remember it.” 

Her shoulders curl inwards and soon a half-hearted laugh drifts from her lips and dies mid-air. 

“Never could get used to the cold here. Nate...he used to laugh at me. Sometimes, sometimes I wonder if any of it’s still there. Home, I mean.” 

“You never exactly said,” he presses gently, wondering now if perhaps this had been a misjudgment, meeting her here where the shadows can hide her. “Your file has more than a few blanks.” 

Talbot hums, low and sad, and his regret seems a waste because Maxson can’t take the question back. Her old life should be hers to keep, what’s left of it. 

“Oh, we had a home here, one there, another over yonder. The Beaujardins were an ostentatious crowd. Virginia was about as far north as we got. I never could decide which was my favorite - I suppose I hated them all equally.” 

Maxson can only blink at her. “Three homes? Was that common?” 

The bout of laughter that follows is loud but it does not hurt to hear it, even as he looks away and refuses to watch her until she’s quiet again. 

“Did you think a name like ‘Eulalia Teacup’ was just a quirk? Please, Arthur, I’ve got better breeding than you in my little finger.” Her eyes turn to look at the darkness and she shakes her head. “I practically came certified with papers.” 

“From the asylum?” 

For a moment, Talbot looks as if he’s struck her, and it’s not until the laughter dances out once more that Maxson can breathe again. Hair spilling into her face, she’s happy to hide the grin that has split her cheeks and uncovered the lines at the corners of her eyes. Too soon, she’s quiet and taming the wild hair, tucking it behind her until it suddenly no longer touches his arm and shoulder. 

“You know something?” 

Maxson turns to her when she speaks, sees her _resting_ against the railing with the posture of a compatriot, an easy acquaintance. Wariness is lacking at her edges. It would be a simple comfort to mimic should he let himself. 

Just this once, he does. 

Talbot must take his silence as grounds to continue. She speaks a moment later and her voice is gentle. Confessing, he realizes, and it is no wonder her eyes remain turned to the dark Commonwealth beyond. 

“It’s hard to remember some days, the little things. Like, I know my favorite lipstick was ‘Dahlia’s Orchid.’ I know the tube was rose gold with little...I don’t know, little flower embellishments at the base. But...I can’t quite picture the exact shade it was. Or what the paintings on our living room walls looked like.” Her voice cracks in his ears like glass shattering. “A few weeks ago, Arthur, I don’t think I could have told you what color my baby’s eyes were.” 

One hand drags through her hair, only to pull it back into her face. Hiding her all over again so that neither of them have to see. 

“But I can still hear him crying…” 

Maxson stiffens. What peace there had been is replaced within a heartbeat with tension. It strains the air, too heavy. 

“Reliving that moment must have been...unfortunate.” He hates that he’s said anything at all as soon as the words are out. 

“No,” she says quickly, “no, not like that. I remember _exactly_ the sounds he would make at night. The ones we could hear from the bedroom. Like a damned siren going off. Every morning. Two-twenty one, three-forty five, and around six, if we were lucky. That kid was like clockwork. Nate, he was always better at it than I was. Said the military training helped. I’d tell him the only thing law school taught me was how to sleep. _That’s_ what I remember. Just enough to hurt.” 

Maxson knows what loss feels like; he’s no fonder of the feeling than the next person. He’s seen soldiers lose wives and husbands, sons and daughters, friends and comrades. But there is a softness to the woman at his side he doesn’t know how to respond to, something from before the bombs that is made of lace and porcelain instead of dust and blood. Her pain seems a breed apart, separated from him by two hundred years. 

“Talbot…” he reaches for her because it seems he should, and she doesn’t run from his touch like he expects her to, “I’m sorry.” 

He is, he’s sorry because he doesn’t know how to help her. He’s sorry that he’s barely gauze over a wound that won’t close and wonders if she’ll ever let him or anything else in the world be more than that. 

Talbot closes her eyes and Maxson counts the breaths she takes as her shoulder rises and falls under his palm. She shifts her weight into him, turning her face into his shoulder as she presses close. She trembles like a grieving widow, like a mother who’s lost her child, and the reminder of these things cuts Maxson deep. Because she’s as human as the others – it’s a lesson he keeps forgetting – and that makes it harder not to pull her closer than he should. 

Her hair is wild around her shoulders, caught part way beneath his arm, and he smooths it away with one hand. It’s soft like he remembers, and clean because she can’t bear to let the end of the world disrupt what trappings of femininity she’s managed to hold onto. Maybe once upon a time it had smelled of flowers - something like jasmine or cherry blossoms or other names he’s read but can’t imagine - though now it simply smells like her. 

Her hands feel uncertain against the curve of his back, as reluctant to hold too tightly as he is. She sighs against him and though he can’t feel it through the leather of his jacket, he knows somehow that she’s righting the world beneath her feet once more. 

“I don’t know why I’m here,” she says, her cheek pressed over his heart, “I don’t know anything anymore.” 

Maxson has no answers for her. 

Talbot must know as much, because she pulls back from his hold - his _embrace_ , because what else can it be when it’s gone this far - and she smiles. Soft and understanding of something Maxson’s not sure of, something she’s suddenly figured out without telling him. Her hands linger at his sides now, her fingertips so light atop his coat he can almost convince himself they're not there at all. 

“I can’t…” She looks away, searching the darkness for the right sort of words. Maxson waits. He hadn’t meant to, not at the start of it all, but for some reason, he doesn’t mind the prospect now. There is no rug beneath either of them and the eyes that eventually meet his again show no inclination of wanting to pull the world out from under him. 

“I won’t lie to Danse again. He’ll be back soon and - I can’t do that.” 

She’s struggling, swallowing what few words come up and trying to find better ones. The honesty hurts her; it’s new and it’s something she’s learned somewhere along the way. 

“Are we friends, Maxson?” She asks finally, her eyes like stars under the moonlight, bright and wide and blinking up at him. “Are you just Arthur?” 

Who is he, she means to ask, who is he to her? Because she’s dangerous like a knife’s edge and he knows deep in his chest that he’ll always feel the threat of her there at his side if he keeps her too near. Mercurial and bitter beyond repair, but not vicious and cruel like she had once been. Tempered like a blade. He still remembers the wild burn of her fire, how it had nearly burned him alive. 

And even now, he wants to warm his hands against her. The flames have dimmed but the embers are still there, hot beneath the surface, and he’ll go up like kindling if he gets much closer. 

Maxson thinks of Danse. Danse, who’s nothing but wariness and new scars and eyes that didn’t trust as easily as they once had. Talbot had done that, too. Talbot and himself, Maxson realizes, letting his eyes slip closed. 

They’d still been playing the game - he just hadn’t noticed. 

She is as tired of it as he is and the final call lays in his hands. If his answer sounds weak, it’s because he’s not sure of the score anymore. 

“I don’t know how to help you, Talbot,” he says. He expects to see the words land like lashes against her, can feel the clench of his gut and the churn of guilt. He should have lied. He should have said anything but what he has, because it’s going to make those wounds bleed again. “ _But I can,_ ” he nearly adds. Nearly, so very nearly. 

Talbot smiles again, smaller now, and sad like before. The press and slow release of her hands at his sides might kill him. _So near to letting go_ , his mind registers too late and the red-hot scorch of the realization as it flares up the back of his neck and over his shoulders into his chest isn’t expected. He’s not braced for the lancing uncertainty that feels all too much like regret. 

“You shouldn’t have to,” she replies, her voice quiet, “but you tried.” 

Her warmth leaves him alongside her words, smoke in the air, the embers safely out of reach. 

“I’m...sorry for how I treated you, Maxson.” 

He takes a reckless step forward and she seems as though she’s done all the running she’s going to do. 

“Talbot, wait -” The sudden angry cut of her expression nearly stops him. “I don’t know what you want me to be, Talbot.” 

“Kind,” she replies, and Maxson wonders if it chokes her as much as it does him, “Patient.” 

He could ask the same of her. 

He does. 


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Busy day tomorrow. Have the chapter a little ahead of schedule!

She’s never seen anything so wondrous as when her paladin emerges from the vertibird. Like the second coming of Christ, it warms her to her bones and banishes the fear; she’s made it. Her trials are over and he’s come back. Whole and healthy and looking for her. 

This smile of his new. It’s not one she’s seen before and she wonders if this is what it must be like to watch the sun come up for the first time. It’s broad and toothy and for Christ’s sake, Danse has dimples and she hasn’t ever noticed before. It’s for her. He’s smiling at her like he missed her as much as she missed him, ripping away the regret of the last time they’d seen each other. 

Beautiful, she thinks. 

He’s beautiful and she’ll chew down a bullet before she ever lets someone take that from him. 

She wants to throw her arms around him and see if she can hear his heart through the steel of his armor. 

“Danse,” she says and it’s the closest she’s come to praying in a long time. 

“You still standing, soldier?” he asks through the smile that hasn’t faded. One big, armored hand comes down atop her shoulder and no one will notice if she lets her cheek rest against it for just a moment or two. “I knew you would be.” 

“It’s been hard.” 

Danse gives her a knowing look - because he does know her. He understands her and two months apart hasn’t changed that. He hasn’t forgotten her. 

He looks at her for a moment longer, watching her eyes and the brightness in them. They must be wide as saucers, she supposes, unembarrassed, because she’s looking at him like he’s the Christmas gift she’s been waiting for all year. She hopes he sees the joy. It’s the first she’s felt in what seems like a lifetime. 

“I have to report to Elder Maxson,” he tells her. The statement sounds almost conspiratorial, at least coming from someone like Danse, who couldn’t conspire on his best days. “I’ll be in the armory after.” 

Instinctually, she braces for the panic, waits for it to crawl up in her belly and start to spin...but it never does. Danse is still watching her and his brows raise ever so slightly. He sees the lack of concern, she knows he does, but what he makes of it, she can’t begin to guess. 

Together they turn to head down the walkway and back into the Prydwen’s command deck. Each step Danse takes in his power armor, Talbot can feel all the way up to her fingertips. She watches him, looks up the nearly two feet difference in height between them and grins happily when he glances at her every few steps. She laughs when he appears to remember the cap he wears - like something a synchronized swimmer would sport, she’d once teased him, and he’s rarely let her catch him in it since - and snatches it off his head, tucking it away somewhere beneath all that armor. 

His hair has gotten long, curling at his ears and hanging, damp with sweat, past his eyes. His beard could give Maxson a run for his money and the idea makes her snort for whatever reason and then blush shortly thereafter. Danse sighs somewhere high above her and if he weren’t being so melodramatic about it, she might think he’d been the long-suffering source of her humor. 

God, she’d missed him. 

“You don’t have to wait,” he tells her when they reach the door to the observation room where Maxson waits within. Don’t be nosy, is what he means but something tells Talbot he doesn’t have the heart to say as much. 

She shrugs, obstinate and banking on the knowledge that he’s not going to send her away when he’s only just found her again. 

“How else will I know if you’re talking about me?” 

“Talbot.” 

“Good luck,” she chirps, “Be nice.” 

Danse is scowling when the door hisses open. For just a moment, Talbot meets Maxson’s eyes from where he stands across the room. There may have even been the beginnings of a smile, or his version of one at any rate, had he not registered in that same second exactly who was standing at her side. She turns away as Danse lumbers through the door, though she refuses to go far, hovering in a nearby corner. 

She hadn’t been teasing when she’d said she wanted to know if they were talking about her. 

They don’t, much to her relief. They speak of technical jargon and caches discovered by Gladius, something dull about Liberty Prime’s progress and the materials still needed. Usually, it’d bore Talbot to death, because she doesn’t give a damn about any of it, but it’s Danse’s voice she’s listening to through the door, and he’s talking to Maxson. It’s all so normal. So routine. 

It’s not until the very end of the discussion that her name comes up. Maxson is the one to mention it. He wants her out in the field again and maybe, just maybe there’s an unspoken worry in the air that she’s a little stir-crazy, but that’s neither here nor there. She’s free from this damned recovery program he’s had her in. He’s setting her loose. Danse says very little about the matter, probably because he knows she’s skulking just outside the door. 

Before she’s able to come down from the cloud she’s on, she hears Danse’s heavy steps toward the door. It’s one thing for him to know she’s been listening, but it’s another thing entirely for her to actually get caught, so she ducks down the ladder and into the main deck below. She waits in the armory, fidgeting with wrenches and dirty rags until Danse finally remembers his way. 

His frown is practically a requisite and she only smiles back, waving a dismissive hand as if to say, “I warned you.” The power armor station nearby that has sat empty for so long is soon host to a familiar, if grime-covered, frame. Danse stretches as he steps down, flexing and rolling his shoulders and groaning when the joints pop. He’s thinner than he had been, Talbot notices, her eyes following the line of muscle down the length of his body. It’s hard to keep her place near the workbench now that he’s out of all that armor. Her foot taps the floor, arms swinging, and she waits. 

Just a single word is all she needs. She hasn’t seen him in weeks and surely the others would understand a lapse in their precious protocol - they all think she’s crazy anyway. In the time it takes Danse to remove his gloves, she’s on him. She’s chest to chest with him in a heartbeat, holding him tight enough to drive the air from his lungs and grinning when she feels it ghost over the top of her head. Her arms lock around him, squeezing him, holding him to her, and if anybody so much as breathes a word about it there’s a side-arm within reach. 

“I missed you, Danse,” she tells him quietly. No one else has the right to hear. 

His heart stutters beneath her cheek, beating too quickly, and she knows she’s flustered him but she’ll happily take the scolding that’s sure to follow. 

“Talbot.” 

She feels her name rumble in his chest and it might be the best thing she’s ever heard. Her face grows hot and it’s all his fault - the burning in her eyes and throat, the pink of her cheeks, all of it. 

A gentle hand coming to rest on the back of her head is all it takes. 

Tears spill over, running over her cheeks to the corners of her mouth where she can taste the salt and bittersweetness. 

She’s so glad he made it. So glad she made it. 

“Eulalia,” he says and the name just makes the tears fall faster, “Eulalia, look at me.” 

Talbot sniffles as she pulls back, her hands still wrapped tight in the fabric of his shirt. It it were anyone else, she’d be ashamed. But not with Danse, never with him. Not as he places his hands atop her shoulders and squeezes tight. Of all the things she’s forgotten, the color of his eyes hasn’t been one of them. They’re still sugar-brown and warm to the brim. 

And proud. 

She can’t remember the last time she’d made anyone proud. 

“After what happened in Goodneighbor…” His thumbs have started to rub small circles over her shoulders and it takes all she’s got not to miss a word of what he’s saying. “You made it through.” 

He looks so remorseful at the mention of the what had happened in the Memory Den, Talbot can’t stand it. His eyes cut away from hers and she wants them back. She pinches him mercilessly through his shirt and he flinches just as she starts to accuse him. 

“You thought I was gonna go nuts and jump off this ship, didn’t you?” 

“Ow!” His hands might drop from where they had been resting but at least those eyes are on hers again. “Talbot!” 

“You did!” 

Danse looks indignant. “Let me be clear - I never had the first doubt -” 

“Don’t you lie to me,” Talbot scoffs, freeing one hand long enough to shove it against Danse’s chest, “You thought I’d be eating paper and tying strings to flies down in the brig when you got back!” 

Danse’s eyes narrow at her, waiting for the slightest tick to give away her sudden ire. She can barely last a moment, the corners of her mouth turning down too harshly as she tries not to laugh. He chokes out a breath when he sees it and the next thing she knows, Danse is shaking within her grasp. His grin is as wide as she’s ever seen it, his shoulders trembling as all the concern he’s built up these last weeks dissolves into something that’s as close to hysterics as Danse can come. 

“Don’t laugh at me,” she says petulantly. One more look at his face, at the delight there, and then she’s laughing, too. 

It’s a first she’ll never forget as long as she lives. He’ll never live it down - somber and serious like he had always been before, heaving for breath after less than an hour back aboard the Prydwen. 

. 

…………………. 

. 

If there’s anyone in the mess hall that night besides her and Danse, Talbot doesn’t notice. Listening to him, watching him, she can forget for a little while the tears she’s cried surviving until this moment. Maybe, so long as he stays, she doesn’t have to remember them at all. 

“Do I need to tell you Elder Maxson asked me to oversee your return to the field?” he asks, wiping the corner of his mouth with what passes for a napkin and tucking it, she notices with a swell of pride, against his lap instead of placing on the table. 

Talbot looks away, a picture of diligent innocence. “I might’ve overheard that part.” 

Danse hums, watching her again, and she knows he wants to ask but isn’t sure how. 

“Aren’t you finished with those…” her nose wrinkles in distaste, “peas. There’s plenty more for tomorrow night. And every night until your retirement. One thousand, three hundred, and forty-seven cans - I know, I counted them.” 

“You counted them?” Danse asks. 

“Mmm, with that rat bastard Teagan.” 

He’s half-way through his last bite when he realizes what she’s said. “Tal -” 

“Shh! Don’t talk with your mouth full, Danse.” She settles back into her chair. “It’s rude.” 

He makes a face and for a moment, Talbot’s not certain he isn’t wishing he was back with his squad in Cambridge. 

“On your feet, soldier,” he says when he’s finally finished. For all her teasing, he could have taken all the time in the world. She doesn’t need to ask where they’re going; she falls into step beside him and together they wander. Through the main deck and up into the catwalks they stroll, going nowhere, content just to spend time. 

There’s no hurry to talk about the things that need to be talked about. 

“You helped, you know,” Talbot eventually says, only glancing at Danse when his attention turns to her. “When things were the hardest, I mean.” 

He doesn’t say anything. She’s grateful. It makes it easier to say what needs to be said. 

“I kept thinking how annoyed you’d be with me and - I don’t know, that got me through it.” 

Just when she’s convinced he won’t say anything, he speaks and the resolute edge in his voice makes her pulse race. 

“You didn’t need me to get through it.” 

It’s a quick, pricking pain in her chest when he says it. She bows her head because he’s wrong. He can’t know how wrong he is. 

“Danse -” 

“How long were you in the Commonwealth before you walked into Cambridge Police Station?” 

The question brings Talbot up short. How long had she been out there? 

“Three...no, four months,” she says after a while. She’d woken up, nearly killed some Minutemen who wanted to set-up shop in her home, and then made her way to Diamond City. Things after that seemed a blur. She’d spent most of that time with sole intention of hunting down the man who’d stolen her family and it’d been only chance that afterwards she stumbled into Cambridge. 

Danse leans against the catwalk railing, watching her with steady eyes. “That’s a lot of days to get through depending on someone you didn’t know existed.” 

Talbot can’t look at him. The words feel cold, like a truth she didn’t want to know. The sort that ruins something, but she’s not quite sure what, just some idea she’d been fond of but can’t describe. 

“Why did you stay, Eulalia?” 

His questions are setting her teeth on edge. They need to stop; she needs them to stop. They’re pulling too much into the light, ripping off bandages on wounds she’s not ready see. Turning from him, she refuses to answer. Won’t even consider one. Not while he’s somehow managed to get his fingers around everything she knew and started shaking all the screws loose. 

“Stay?” It’s a play to buy time. A pitiful one, but if he’s kind, he’ll go along with it. 

“Here,” Danse confirms. “After what happened in the Memory Den. Why didn’t you run?” 

“Should I have?” she asks. She scowls at him over her shoulder and bites out words with sharp teeth. “Tired of playing sponsor? You could have said something sooner.” 

Danse doesn’t so much as flinch and she’s glad - she would’ve hated to hurt him. His eyes are level on hers - coaxing, drawing out answers she wouldn’t give anyone else. 

“I - Danse, I don’t know,” she finally relents. “I don’t know. Maybe I just stayed to spite Maxson.” 

He doesn’t look like he believes her. 

The small spark of anger she’d felt is already dimming. It leaves her sagging and she presses her back to the rail and lifts her eyes to meet his. 

“What should I have done?” 

Danse looks away, his hands flexing against the cool steel as he searches for whatever it is he needs her to hear. Talbot tries not to breathe, doesn’t want to move. Whatever he’s trying to tell her, she won’t be the one to give him an excuse not to say it. The pulse of her heart is slow in her ears, as if time’s slowed down to match the doubt that’s creeping it’s way up the back of her spine. 

“You could go anywhere. Go back to the Southeast Commonwealth.” 

The look in Danse’s eyes is all it takes to rip her heart out; he looks like he means what he’s saying, like he wants her to believe it, too. 

“Your heart’s not in the Brotherhood, Talbot.” 

It squeezes the rest of her breath from her lungs. He’s gotten it wrong again. So long away from her, maybe he’s forgotten her after all. 

It doesn’t matter. She still can’t stand to lie to him. 

“Isn’t it?” 

The calloused fingers atop the railing slacken; Talbot watches as they release one by one, color returning to knuckles that had gone bone-white. His lips part - what is there to say? - and the eyes that had been warm and fond seem darker than before. There are shadows in them now, playing against the light, and some deep, lurking secret sparks to life. 


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for any errors in this chapter; as soon as I'm able, I'll sit down tomorrow and give it the edit it deserves. I'm in the middle of a move and had to upload on the run, but I wanted to get this out to you today. Thank you all for reading. You really, really can't know how much it means that you're all still here for this story.

The Commonwealth smells of dry air and smoke. The burning is Danse’s doing and watching him now, his enemies learn he’s as dangerous out of power armor as he is in it. Fried circuitry from turrets and the remnants of an explosive end to a very brief fight with a pair of raiders are the only things that overpower the ringing in Talbot’s ears. Gunshots have shaken her bones loose, leaving her hands twitching over the grip of her 10mm. 

“Outstanding shot on that tree,” Danse huffs, lowering his rifle, “Very impressive.” 

Talbot’s features twist and she scowls at a limb as it cracks and drops pitifully to the ground well beyond where the dead raiders lay. 

“Don’t get cute,” she snipes. 

The wind picks up, though it’s not enough to disguise the low chuckle Danse tries - and fails - to smother. She’ll get there, she knows she will, Danse had told her as much. It’s her first dust up since escaping the Prydwen and Maxson had promised them three days. 

Knowing Maxson had granted that - it feels almost like trust and Talbot isn’t entirely certain it’s not what has her nerves frayed bare. She had barely spoken to him since Danse’s arrival and even that had been nothing outside of a short briefing in which he’d explained his desire to see her return to the field. There’d been words about her progress, about her potential as an asset, and then a small, secret smile that she isn’t sure she hadn’t imagined. 

“Where we headed?” she asks. 

She hadn’t been told - she isn’t convinced Danse knows. The point may well be for them to wander aimlessly further and further from the Prydwen in the hopes neither of them ever returns. All part of some elaborate ruse. Maxson should be so lucky. 

Danse directs her attention to a nearby ridge. “That way.” 

“That way?” 

“Keep your weapon ready. Where there’s a few raiders, there are bound to be more nearby. Now,” Danse waves her forward, “Take point.” 

Grumbling for the sake of being heard, Talbot does as asked. For what feels like miles, they walk and Talbot feels Danse’s smirk branding her between her shoulder blades every few steps. He has to see through the show she makes of kicking rocks and scowling at the dirt. Because there’s fresh air in her lungs and earth beneath her feet and nothing, nothing in the world can frighten her with Danse at her back. 

What increasingly few complaints she makes are just part of the pony show. Danse scolds her dutifully each time and Talbot grants him a few moments of peace before griping again just to hear him speak. 

She had been on beach vacations she had enjoyed less than this. 

When it all goes wrong, it happens quickly, and as the first of a new volley of shots ring past her paladin’s head, the 10mm is suddenly steadier in her grip. Adrenaline blazes, pulsing, pounding with every squeeze of the trigger. She _is_ worth the trust that had been placed in her. 

“Take cover!” 

The command crashes high above the din and Talbot slides low behind a battered truck. The blue spit of energy that crashes nearby is a threat she’s faced before. 

“Danse - these aren’t raiders!” 

It’s a pack of synths, swarming and armored and pressing hard against the larger threat. Panic burns in her gut, making her fingers tighten around her weapon until the accidental thunder and spray of dirt of a round leaving the barrel startles her free from the grip of fear. 

A sudden cry from Danse drags her right back beneath the waves. 

_Breathe. Breathe._ She has to remember how. Even as her breath lodges in her throat and chest, she has to - she has to help him. It’s going to be her fault if she loses him. Her fault because her knees are digging holes in the ground and she can’t get up with the world bleeding at the edges. 

Bleeding. Lungs struggling like matches in water. 

Her name echoes in the air - rough and harsh, like it’s come through clenched teeth. 

No. Danse needs her. He’s done so much and now he needs her to be strong, stronger like she’d been when she’d crawled her way out of the vault. 

An animal snarl forces what is left of her breath from her lungs as Talbot scrambles out from behind cover. Four of them need killing and when her clip runs out after the second falls, Talbot hurls the full weight of her body against the third. She lands atop sprawling metal-work limbs and tears at exposed circuits with bare fingers. When the synth’s laser pistol presses against her ribs and clicks once, then twice, she wrenches the empty weapon free and brings it crashing down over the featureless head-casing. Over and over until the synth is still and she can fit her fist through the hole in its facial cavity. 

A pain she hasn't seen coming blooms between her shoulder and neck; she can’t scream - there’s only burning fumes in her lungs - and she looks up to find the fourth and final creation rearing back to bring its baton down again. The synth falls before the second blow can land. A few feet away stands Danse, breathing hard, his rifle snug against his shoulder. 

The only thing that holds her breakfast down is embarrassment. 

Talbot swallows air until she’s dizzy. Heaving forward, she rests her forehead against the ground, ignoring the specks of dirt that dig at her tongue with each inhalation. The soft-focus world makes it hard to center herself and as pyretic hands pull at her jaw, the heat seems too much and she retches again. Those hands sweep down her sides and up again, as demanding as the questions being asked - is she hurt? There’d been a gun, he’d seen it, he knows he had, he couldn’t get to her - 

“Are you hurt?” The question is raw and she wonders if she sounds as sick as she feels. “Danse?” 

“Breathe,” Danse’s voice is wary, a non-answer to what she’d asked, and she can tell from the sound of it that whatever momentary panic he’d felt is stowed away and he’s now watching the direction where the synths had appeared. 

“ _Danse_?” It’s a demand this time. 

“Negative,” Danse replies. He shifts closer, his hands pulling at the buckles of Talbot’s chest piece. It must be safe. The knowledge helps the next breath to come easier. “Hold still. Let’s take a look at your shoulder.” 

Soon the armor is gone and he’s prodding the bruise that swells beneath the collar of her flannel. 

“It’s fine,” Talbot says, forcing herself to sit up. Things are coming back into focus, humming with color, though the smell of sizzling wires still threatens to turn her stomach. Danse seems worse for wear when she finally looks at him. The shell of one ear is singed and growing redder by the second. 

Danse spares a glance at the mangled synth nearby. 

“What you did was reckless, Talbot.” 

She nods; he isn’t wrong. It’s alright, she’s sure of it. She’s still breathing and Danse is fine and somewhere far away, Maxson doesn’t hate her. Cutting her eyes up to Danse’s face, she watches as his nostrils flare and narrow and times her breath with his. It’s not lost on him what she’s doing; his breaths grow deeper, slower, and after a few wracking minutes, hell lets her out the other side. 

“It’s good,” she tells him, prying her fingers free from the gouges she’s made in the dirt. “I’m good, boss man. I promise.” 

He doesn’t question her. He stands and lets her get up on her own, knowing, like he always does, that she needs to do it herself. 

The sun feels nearer now, hot like a brand against the back of her neck, and for a moment she’s swept back to days long past. Days of tulle dresses and hair pins, not combat armor and poly-fiber. She had gotten through those days - they had led her here - and she’ll get through this one. 

She has to. She had promised she would. 

. 

………………. 

. 

Danse leaves Talbot’s side at the airfield. Ingram needs help with ‘electromagnetic actuators,’ he tells her and for once he’s found a topic about which she won’t ask for elaboration. 

“You’ll need to brief Elder Maxson once you’re on board,” he says. “Give him this. And no, you will not listen to it beforehand.” 

She’s handed a small holotape. 

“It’s my evaluation of your performance,” he explains. 

“You only said nice things, right?” she asks. “Because I saved your life. I went fist-to-cuffs with a synth for you, Danse.” 

“You instigated a conflict with an enemy constructed entirely of durable materials -” 

“I didn’t _instigate_ any -” 

“- with your _fists_ , soldier.” 

Danse dismisses her with a shake of his head and a stern finger pointed in the direction of the landing pad. 

Now, for the first time since her paladin’s return, Talbot finds herself in front of Maxson’s door. She knocks and when he opens it, something in his eyes tells her he’s pleased that it’s her standing there. 

“Paladin Danse’s _evaluation_.” She hands the tape to him. 

Maxson accepts it and to her surprise, steps aside to allow her room to enter. It’s the easiest way to issue the invitation, and there’s less sting if she declines. But the prospect isn’t daunting now, not like it had been. It no longer like being funneled into an ambush. 

The door latches quietly behind her. 

“Anything noteworthy?” Maxson asks, brushing past her - testing her, his arm against hers. Seems a lot like checking for land mines with bare toes, Talbot thinks. 

“If there was, I’m sure Danse mentioned it.” 

“I’m asking _you_ , Talbot.” 

Maxson places the holotape on his desk and turns his back to it. He really is asking her, then. Wants her opinion, mad though it may be. The idea makes her palms sweat. 

“The, uh, the first day was difficult. I...I might’ve -” No, she grinds the excuses and the maybes between her teeth. “I panicked.” 

She shifts her hips, wrings her hands, looks for any distraction she can, only to still when she catches Maxson watching the movements with interest. 

“The second day was better,” she says. 

Maxson crosses his arms and she knows that look - has seen it before because it sends ice running through her bones. 

“You panicked?” 

She feels stupid. Like a child singled out in class. 

“Yes,” she admits because she has to and maybe if she looks penitent enough, he won’t ask her anymore. 

“It’s been two months since you were in the field,” Maxson tells her, his arms dropping to his side, “Most soldiers would have.” 

No. 

The understanding, the effort behind it, strikes her like a fist against her jaw. His eyes on her feel like fingers over her skin, curious, trying to find something that might give beneath them. It’s too hard to stand with muscles demanding she move, that she do anything to distract that prying gaze. Talbot reaches for a chair and lifts her eyes to his in question. _Please?_

One corner of Maxson’s lips quirks ever so slightly - she might have missed it if she didn’t feel so hyper-aware of every move, every blink he makes. A few seconds pass and soon a tumbler is placed down in front of her. 

“You said you don’t like whiskey?” It’s a half-question he already knows the answer to. 

“Or rum. Or brandy,” she replies. Her fingers find the glass and play against the rim while she waits and watches. 

“Vodka?” 

Talbot smiles uneasily. “Not since my twenty-fifth.” 

Maxson makes a familiar sound that calms the arrhythmic stutter in Talbot’s chest. He’s already frustrated and her presence here has barely passed the five-minute mark. That's better. She fights the amused grin creeping its way past her lips. 

“How about...a nice, room temperature nuka-cola?” 

Maxson makes a face, but pulls a dark bottle from his stash all the same. 

“I really thought better of you,” he says, placing the bottle down by her glass. 

Liar. 

“No, you didn’t.” 

Those heavy shoulders rise and fall and he doesn’t seem in the mood to call her bluff. 

They share their drinks under the guise of companionable make-believe; all could be right with the world if they pretend hard enough that tears and curses from once upon a time were just bad dreams. Talbot’s reasons for not speaking run dry with the last drop of cola but the words still won’t come. She had asked for kindness and expected civility but Maxson has given her something else. Something that stings pleasantly at her tongue with sugar and a spice blend she can’t guess. 

What a mad, mad world it is and her crazy to begin with. 

When she reaches for him, it’s just to test the strength of the current, her hand skimming across the table to brush his fingers atop the whiskey glass. They’re warm and flex in uncertainty beneath hers. Her touch runs up the length of his arm, until she has to lean over the table to reach his jaw. His eyes, so blue and with that ring of silver at the center, follow her; she feels the heat they draw from her cheeks and it makes her hesitate, girlish and shy. 

Being gentle with him makes her think of snow in the summertime. 

Maxson catches her hand with his, holds her there at his cheek and turns just enough that his mouth can graze over the vein of her wrist. Blizzards and watermelon patches indeed. So strange. The press of his mouth turns fervent, sloppy against her skin, and when his teeth nip where her skin feels most tender, she gasps. He tugs her hand, beckons her more sweetly than he should, and she follows simply because no one has given her a reason not to. 

The lips that had been on her wrist find a new place at the curve of her neck. His breath is more ragged than hers - she can feel it against her skin and wonders how long he’s wanted them back to this. The pressure of his mouth and teeth is suddenly too much when he uncovers the healing bruise her fight days earlier had left her with. She pulls back, distracts him with her lips over his - it’s enough. 

Maxson breathes _into_ her, open mouthed and wanton. She had forgotten how wickedly he twitches under her fingers. Time and anger haven’t changed everything. The way he presses his hips into hers when she scrapes her nails over his scalp remains the same. 

He groans her name, lets her taste it on his tongue, and it’s bittersweet like whiskey. Her hips cant into his, demanding he call for her again, and when he does, when it sounds desperate and hungry enough, she takes his hand to the clasp of her fatigues. 

The button is undone and the fabric swept down over the curve of her ass as he palms her. Hands work the flesh of her rear harder with each breath she draws in. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses, teeth scraping the edge of her jaw. An especially rough cuff over one cheek hitches her closer and it’s Talbot’s turn to whisper curses. She muffles her words against his ear and the harshness to them makes him go still. She kisses him, just the faintest pass of her lips over his, and in that moment, she’s glad for the table behind her as her knees grow weak with gratitude. 

Kindness and patience. She had asked and been asked in turn and maybe this is what those things taste like. There is no gnashing of teeth and lips, no drag of nails meant to mark and claim. Just mingled breath and the cool, gentle sweep of tongues to lap the hunger from wanting lips. 

Maxson whispers her name, his hands flexing softly before one trails around her hip to the dip between her thighs. 

“Yes,” she tells him, asks him, “yes.” 

He obliges and drinks down the rasping cry torn from her throat as the first finger sinks down to the knuckle. 

“Shh.” His lips over hers, he quiets her. 

His other hand leaves her ass, only to curve around her waist and lift her, letting her settle atop the table. Her legs splay wider and it’s an invitation that earns her a second finger. Both work her, pushing and pulling, and when she says his name - his _name,_ Arthur, because he’s tender and kind and patient - his thumb drags over her clit. She understands. Give and receive. Symbiosis. 

“Arthur.” Her face hides against his shoulder but he hears her and the rhythm of his hand as he plays her makes her sing his praises. 

His voice is gravel against her skin. “Is this what you wanted from me, Talbot?” Teeth scrape her gently. “Did you miss fucking me?” 

She'd missed fucking. 

The heat of his tongue skirting up the column of her neck leaves her unable to answer, incoherent, and she wrenches her eyes shut. Thrusting her hips forward, she fucks herself in reply and if Maxson has doubts, here is his answer. 

“That’s it,” he teases against her ear, “It’s yours - take it.” 

More, she needs more. 

“Tell me what you want,” he says. 

She wonders if he will give it to her if she does. Her mind, struggling with thoughts that won’t form, dreams up feelings - hot and wet, suckling pressure at her core. There it is, the image that makes her surrender. She wants to see his lips slick with her. 

“Your mouth,” she gasps, “Please, Arthur.” 

He _kisses_ her and the gall of his amusement now at all times brings her teeth down over his lip. The return to form incenses him, she can feel the sudden tautness in his muscles, and suddenly she is forced back against the table and hears the scrape of chair legs over the floor. Maxson sits and before Talbot is able to beg, his tongue scalds a path between her lips. 

A delicious, wounded sound rumbles in his chest and dances up her thigh - the whistle of the lash as it falls. He takes her clit between his lips, groans again, and twists his fingers roughly. Then, too soon, they’re gone. 

For a wretched, gutting moment, she’s empty and her mouth falls agape, disbelieving beyond words and sound. A beat later, the heat of his tongue, vicious and cruel, sinks into her. She stares down at him, sees his eyes pressed closed so tightly, so fervently, she could almost believe he was whispering prayers into her. 

She says his name and feels teeth against her thigh as a reward and then there is nothing from her save for quick, sharp breaths. Her back arches, hips snapping, dragging him deeper, and then she breaks to the sounds of Maxson drowning in her. 

Quivering, her body slackens and the kisses he presses against her thighs seem too tender for the punishment she’s been put through. 

Maxson hushes her as she starts to speak, his body sliding up hers until he can place kisses at the corners of her mouth. He’s straining at the fabric of his pants and the last thing she expects for him to do is to work her own back over her hips. She is grateful, nothing but limp bones, but grateful all the same. 

She finds the will to ask him if he’s sure and yes, he is, because the steps they take are small ones. Better to build the bridge before walking over its edge. 


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late. Good news is you only have to wait like a day for the next one.

_Mrs. Able bakes apple pie every Thursday. It’s one of the reasons the woman remains Eulalia’s favorite neighbor. She is also not above bribery, much to Eulalia’s secret delight, and for a pint of homemade pimento cheese, Mrs. Able is more than happy to trade her baked goods. Covered dish in one hand, Eulalia hitches a bleary-eyed Shaun to her hip and calls out to her husband._

_“Hun, I’m fixing to run to the Ables!”_

_Nate wishes her luck, voice strained, and she can just imagine him leaning this way and that, face covered in shaving cream, a razor poised for the next drag._

_The visit is short - just mutual pleasantries and cooing over Shaun. Such bright eyes! My, just look at those blonde curls! Eulalia has heard them all before and her pride has yet to cease its swelling._

_The apple pie barely makes it past the front threshold. She can smell it, sticky sweet over the carpet, warm cinnamon turning her stomach with each waft. The toe of one red pump is slick from the syrup but it’s a problem for later - or never - as she kicks them off and hurries around the couch to place a squirming Shaun atop the rug._

_Nate. It’s happened again. Her poor Nathaniel, with his back straining against the kitchen island and his head tucked between his knees as he struggles to force air back down his throat. It rattles in the air, a sound more at home in a hospital than a kitchen, and it must feel like he’s swallowing razorblades or gravel the way it seems to scrape on the way down._

_“Nate?” Her voice trembles and she goes to him with slow steps like the counselors suggested. “Sweetheart?”_

_The most beautiful eyes in the world are red-rimmed and leaking when he manages to glance at her. He can’t speak, or doesn’t trust himself to. Either way, doesn’t matter. Eulalia slips to the floor beside him, the hem of her new dress sliding high, wrinkling, but it’s nothing. Later she can iron it, later when things are better for him._

_“You can get through this,” she promises him, placing her hand over his white-knuckled one, “Tell me what I can do.”_

_“Shaun?” he gasps._

_“He’s fine, darling. He’s right over there - look.” Shaun coos in reply, sprawled on his belly and snatching at handfulls of nothing. He smiles, chubby and toothless, and then warbles happily when he realizes he’s being watched. Eulalia smiles calmly back and hopes it doesn’t look like knives drawn over a sharpener._

_“Just breathe,” she coaxes Nate, hand squeezing, “You’re making him proud, see?”_

_“Can’t - “ Nate shakes his head. “I can’t -”_

_“You can. You do. Everyday.” She’s seen proof. They’ve done this before. “Just breathe. I’ll be right here with you. We’re not going anywhere.”_

_“I’m sorry.” Tears spill over and catch in his half-shaven beard. “Lale, I -”_

_The only thing stronger than the sorrow is the hatred. It’s in the grip of his hands and the grimace that splits his face. He hates the fear. Hates that he needs the help. Gets it all tangled up and calls it weakness._

_“You can do this,” she says again, her voice stronger now. “I promise you can do this, Nate.”_

_The claws in the air have retracted and Nate’s breaths don’t sound like they’re tearing his throat anymore. He closes his eyes, breathes, and Eulalia wonders if he really needed her to begin with._

_“You can,” she assures him one more time, just in case, “Just think of something beautiful.”_

. 

……… 

. 

“Look at you, polishing the silverware before supper.” 

There’s a lazy smile in Talbot’s voice as she stretches across Danse’s workbench. Her footsteps had been soft, the sort that come with loose muscles and few worries, and her paladin hadn’t noticed her until she’d spoken. In the privacy of the deserted armory, Danse has stripped out of his dingy body armor and canvas fatigues, down to an equally discolored undershirt. The skin over one bicep glares a dull, angry purple, the same shade as the bruise on Talbot’s shoulder. Whether it is from their encounter with the synths or the raiders, she can’t be sure; he’d made a good show of not letting on he’d taken a hit. 

It doesn’t seem as though he’s made much leeway into cleaning the more than two months worth of Commonwealth grit from his power armor. Only a single leg outshines the other limbs and the rest will take him all night. Slow work, then, the sort he enjoys.Talbot has to wonder if he prefers to do it in peace. 

Danse runs a rag over his fingers and turns his head away too late to hide the depreciating grin. 

“I thought I’d missed dinner,” he says. 

She scoffs. “You did.” 

There’s no extra cleaning rag at his station, so she steals one from someone else’s and pretends she doesn’t hear Danse when he tells her to put it back. He’s got a long way to go on the armor and if he won’t go to bed, she doesn’t need to either. 

“Permission to touch the power armor, sir?” 

The corners of Danse’s mouth keep fighting that losing battle. 

“Granted.” 

There is no room for words, not between the rusted bolts and pistons and the hands that polish them. ‘Domestic’ comes to mind. Talbot might as well be wiping the counters down after a meal. 

With thoughts of home and Danse to ruin her, she might as well be a deer in the middle of a midnight highway. 

“How did your report go with Elder Maxson?” 

The rag catches against a screw and tears as the question upends her. She’s worked her way up to the chestpiece, her head bent comfortably under Danse’s arm as he wipes at the grime on one shoulder of the suit. A stutter behind her breasts makes her nearly lose her grip but she can’t do that, it’s too indiscreet. She’s not guilty. It's just pangs of what had been before. Old nicotine cravings. 

“It went well,” she says after a moment, “Things are...they’re better.” 

Had it been a test? Danse can't be the one with his hand on the lever. Yet she can't shake the feeling the floor might open under her. The tumble of her stomach isn’t guilt - she’s mistaken nicotine for something else. A taste she doesn’t know. Danse’s refusal to so much as glance at her makes the tang grow infinitely sharper, leaves the sting of crab apple or lemon in her mouth. He looks all too much like the Sunday girls back home - it’s not gossip so long as the right questions are asked. 

“Danse?” 

She has to ask - has to be certain she’s not dreaming up some new paranoia. 

She knows she’s not when he continues to polish the same square inch of armor he’s been at for three minutes. 

Not a single tell is forthcoming, just a stone-cold poker face that could have won thousands in Vegas once upon a time. 

“For God’s sake,” Talbot can’t stand it. She calls the hand first. “Don’t sit there and stew.” 

For a man who is pushing six-five, he seems awfully small in the moments that follow. Hands stilling over the armor, Danse lets his chin drop to his chest - caught or defeated, Talbot can’t tell. Probably regretting he’d ever opened his mouth, if she was a betting woman. 

“Professional?” 

The question is vague but clear enough to broadcast the moment of truth for what it is. He’s putting her to the rack, whether he knows it or not. It had been so much easier with Maxson, at least then it hadn’t been like screws turning against bone. Because she won’t lie to Danse, not again. Won't forsake him now. 

A profession of faith for a heretic. 

On the cross, at the stake, the proclamation is hard not to renounce with instinct trying to force the truth back down her throat. 

“It’s…like you think it is.” Like trying to get a fishhook out of her mouth. Hurts any way she turns it. “It wasn’t. And then, then...today, it was.” 

Danse looks like she’s thrown a stick of live dynamite at his feet. 

“You don’t have to explain.” 

“But I do -” 

“Why?” Danse’s voice cuts like a knife over her throat. “You feel like you have to justify it - why?” 

“Christ, because I don’t want to lie to you again!” 

“ _Stop it_.” 

“You asked, Danse! Do you _want_ me to lie to you?” 

For the first time since that day on the rooftop of the police station, she’s backed him right up to the edge. He straddles it like a tightrope, losing his balance between that fine-tuned soldier’s calm and the frustration that’s raising it’s head, threatening poison with a viper’s fangs. 

When it comes, the bite sinks deep. 

Danse sighs and turns away, only to look quickly at her again as though he can’t stand the idea of giving her his back. Some easy target for her to take advantage. 

“Do you remember when you said you wished you’d kept walking that day at Cambridge?” he asks. 

The sight of the rag that he’d been holding as it’s thrown to the floor at his feet reminds her of blood. Red and dirty, pooling in a heap, it takes her hand at her throat to make sure it’s not real. To make sure it’s not hers. 

“Yes.” She remembers. Like Bible verses, she remembers every day she’s spent with him. The good and the bad and the brutal. 

“It’s just - Talbot, thinking about it now...I’m not sure it wouldn't have been better for all of us if you had.” 

It’s a slow, splitting pain. A crooked knife dragging slowly from front to back, lodging somewhere out of sight and reach. She can’t undo it, can’t un-feel the puncture and the wound it leaves. The world stops spinning but she’s still dizzy and dying as one hand grabs desperately for something to cling to. 

She _hates_ the truth. 

Hates it because it hollows out her insides and spreads the gore out for her to see. 

Her lip trembles and she wishes it wouldn’t because it’s pathetic and sad and only makes the blood pour that much more pitifully. Stupid words tumble out, inane and useless. The plea of a lost little girl. 

“Don’t - please, don't say that, Danse.” 

Don’t say it because he _can’t_ mean it. And he can’t mean it because he’s the one person in a vicious world that wouldn’t hurt her. 

He looks sorry that he has. Wounded, like he’s bleeding as much as she is. But it’s wishful thinking. Like heaven or unicorns or world peace. Because he’s still standing, even as her knees start to buckle. 

“You need to hear it, Eulalia.” 

_Eulalia_ . Tailored dresses and matching heels, dark lipstick and platinum curls. Soft and independent. From before, long before she wasn’t any of those things. The name tastes like smoke and lies like a mirror. 

“Don’t you say that!” The words are like the sloppy snap of teeth from a cornered dog. “Don’t call me that like we’re -” 

“Eulalia, listen to me -” 

“ - like we’re _friends_.” 

Just a pipe dream. 

“I - I…” She wipes the tears away somehow. Scratches her eyes when her hands won’t stop shaking. “I kept your workbench...” 

All those nights spent in this same room, feet away, _waiting_. Dutifully as if it would make a difference. She can taste every speck of dust she’d wiped clean, every bit of grease and oil. It’s filling up her lungs. Rising like bile and drowning her. 

All that time. 

She watches him, tries to find something she’s missed before. “Why didn’t you _say_ something, Danse?” 

Danse’s hands on her face smell like kerosene. Has he ever touched her face before? They’re too big and too warm and drag her breath from her chest. A single match and he could be done with her. She might go up in flames and burn like a witch until only ash was left. 

It isn’t _fair_. 

“ _No_.” She hurls her rag at him, hits him square in the chest and snatches his hands away. They won’t break beneath hers, even as she tries, they just twist and lock and do what they can to stop the fighting. 

“Everything I’ve done...for you,” her voice breaks, “For you because...because _you_. I lost _everything_ and then I found....And - and fuck you, Danse. You don’t get to just take that.” 

“I’m not trying to! I’m _worried_ about you.” Danse turns his hands over hers and she feels the scorch of them as he reaches around her to pull her close. “I want better for you than what you’d have here.” 

But _he’s_ here. Not in Diamond City, not in Sanctuary, not in some easier place where the shadows don’t watch and whisper. 

She should know better than to ask questions of people who won’t lie to her. 

“Do you...do you want me here?” 

The smile on Danse’s lips is tired and small. She just can see it when she pulls back to watch the last blow fall. 

“What do _you_ want?” he asks and she hates him for asking things no one should. Not of her. He brushes away a renegade tear that she wishes he’d let fall so she wouldn’t have to endure the way his touch breaks her. 

A last request. A more tender end to her than honesty. 

No more truth. She's tired of the way it turns her bones out to dry. 

“Lie to me,” she tells him sadly, “Just this once.” 

Danse drops his forehead to hers and it’s his breath she swallows down. Let’s her take his fever, one last stolen thing so she won’t ask for anything else. Maybe she’ll burn up and it’ll be slow like the pass of his hands over the small of her back or the rise and fall of his chest against hers. Lie to her and she’ll believe the press of his body and the comfort of home are her imagination. Delusions that will pass as faith starts to fade. 

His breath on her face isn’t there. She can’t feel it tickle her eyelashes and lips. 

“Yes, I’m glad you stayed. Bringing you here was a good decision.” She can’t taste the poison as he speaks. “I don't regret a thing.” 

It’s not an end and she doesn’t need him, even as she swears against his cheek with tear-chapped lips. 

“I hate you. I _hate_ you.” 

Something damp falls at the corner of her eye, carves a path through her own tears, and brings ruin to _everything_. 

“I believe you,” he promises her softly, “I do.” 

Liar. Danse is nothing but a liar. The best she's ever believed. 


End file.
